Fonda Lee - Jade War

“You only killed one of them,” Hilo said. “The one you got in the neck, yes, but the other one will live.” He wasn’t certain that was the case, but if it made Lott feel better, there was no harm in saying so. The Finger didn’t answer or even turn his head.

“Lott-jen, look at the Pillar when he speaks to you,” Hilo demanded, his voice sharp.

The young man flinched, in the way of a boy accustomed to punishment, and turned quickly toward Hilo with guilt in his eyes. His expression flickered briefly between doubt and defiance, but he dared not meet Hilo’s commanding stare; he dropped his gaze and murmured, “Forgive my disrespect, Kaul-jen.”

Ever since he’d first met Lott, Hilo had noticed him to be a moody, sulky sort of teen, which could be forgiven for a short while, but the man was a Green Bone now; he had to learn how to behave. Hilo’s eyes did not shift or lose their sternness, but after another minute had passed, he said in a much gentler voice, “I’ll always forgive a friend, because otherwise how could people be honest with each other? I didn’t bring you on this trip to make you prove yourself. I brought you because you stood in front of me ahead of all your classmates last year and took your oaths first—that’s something I’d remember. When it comes to which brothers I want to get to know, which ones I want fighting next to me if it comes to life or death, that sort of thing is important.”

Lott did not look back up, but after a second, he gave a nod and his jade aura settled into a grudging but calmer hum. Hilo turned around in his seat and reached into the cooler to pull out two mango sodas; he opened them and handed one to Lott, who accepted it and drained half the bottle.

Hilo said, “Those men you fought today—you didn’t know them and they’d done you no personal offense. That’s why it bothers you to have killed them. It’s only natural to feel that way; if we didn’t, we’d be no better than animals. There are some people who are like that, of course, even some Green Bones, but thankfully not too many.”

Hilo drank from his own soda bottle. “People are born selfish; babies are the most selfish creatures, even though they’re helpless and wouldn’t survive a day on their own. Growing up and losing that selfishness—that’s what civilization is, that’s what sets us above beasts. If someone harms my brother, they harm me—that’s what our clan oaths are about. Those men weren’t your enemies—they were our enemies. You can understand that, can’t you, Lott Jin?”

The Finger hesitated. “Yes, Kaul-jen.”

Hilo put a warm hand on Lott’s shoulder and left it there for a moment, then rose and went to another seat to give the young man space to be by himself and think. When he’d been Horn, Hilo had considered it a vital part of his job to see to it that new Fingers were coached along, and that those with the most promise were noticed and mentored. He was still unsure about Lott, but he was glad that he’d had this chance to speak to the young man personally; sometimes those few words mattered.

Hilo finished his soda and set the bottle on the empty seat next to him. He leaned his head next to the small window and stared out to the distant horizon. The noise and vibration of the propeller plane droned in his skull. Midway between the Uwiwa Islands and home, there was nothing to see but ocean and more ocean separating Kekon from its nearest neighbors. On the other side of that seemingly endless expanse of water lay the country of Espenia and the city of Port Massy where Anden was now living.

Hilo glanced across the aisle at his blood cousin Teije Runo, still morosely icing his bruised face, and felt a savage desire to push him out of the airplane and watch him fall a long way into the ocean below. When he turned back to the window, Hilo was frowning, and his frown grew deeper and more pensive than the one he’d tried to ease off Lott.

The week after his adoptive grandfather’s funeral, Anden boarded an eleven-and-a-half-hour flight out of Janloon International Airport. He felt as if he were entering the cell that housed prisoners on the night before execution. Only, instead of a shoebox-sized shrine and a penitent to guide meditation prayers that might ease his conscience in preparation for the afterlife, there were stacks of tattered gossip and lifestyle magazines and stewardesses moving through the circulating haze of cigarette smoke to offer blankets and hot tea.

Anden took a sleeping pill and knocked himself out for most of the trip. When he awoke, the plane was coming in for a landing, and groggily, he opened the window shade to get a first glimpse of the foreign city he’d been exiled to. Like a vast, spiky beast asleep under a blanket, the metropolis of Port Massy lay sprawled beneath a thick layer of fog, tinted orange by the late-afternoon sun. Steel and concrete skyscrapers jutted up in dense clumps on the tidal banks where the great Camres River emptied into Whitting Bay and met the North Amaric Ocean. Anden searched for landmarks he’d seen in photographs and on television: the Iron Eye Bridge, the Mast Building, the Port Guardian statues. Even up until now, he had not really believed that he was leaving Kekon, but at last it seemed real, and when the landing wheels of the airplane bumped against the tarmac, his heart answered with a thud of awe and fear.

In the baggage claim area, he picked up his suitcase and stood nervously scanning the crowd until he saw an elderly Kekonese couple holding a sign with his name written on it. He approached them and said, “Mr. and Mrs. Hian?” They looked at him in surprise, as if he was not who they had been expecting. The man had gentle eyes and a short, wiry gray beard that was darker than his hair; the woman had a wide, rosy face with surprisingly few wrinkles for her age.

Anden set his bag on the ground and said, “I’m Emery Anden. Thank you for opening your home to me. May the gods shine favor on you for your kindness.” He touched his clasped hands to his forehead and tilted into a respectful salute.

If the couple had been initially confused by Anden’s appearance, they were put at ease by his fluent Kekonese and respectful manners. “Ah, it’s no trouble for us; we like to host students,” said Mr. Hian, smiling now and touching his forehead in greeting. His wife did the same, and asked, “How was your flight? It’s very long, isn’t it? We’ve only been back to Kekon twice since we moved here; that flight, it’s too long! My old body can’t take it anymore.” Her husband tried to take Anden’s suitcase, which Anden quickly insisted on relieving him of, and the couple led the way out of the airport to the short-term parking lot.

Mr. Hian drove, with Mrs. Hian in the front passenger seat. It was the smallest, oldest car that Anden had ever been in, with brown fabric upholstery, a faux wood dash, and windows that only rolled down halfway. Anden sat in the back, staring out at the passing streets and buildings. The air was humid, but nothing like Janloon’s fragrant sweat; the dampness here felt cool and ashy. Steam rose from grates in the sidewalks as people hurried past storefronts with mannequins displaying bright, tinselly clothes. Buskers drummed, largely ignored, on upturned metal pails outside a train station. Double-decker buses spewed black exhaust. The largest city in Espenia seemed a sunless and unfriendly place, a picture of frenetic activity against a sepia canvas of brick and concrete. And everywhere he looked, he saw Espenians.

“So, do you have family in Espenia?” Mr. Hian asked casually.