Jade War

“Shae looked into it. He has ties to the Mountain,” Hilo said. “They’re being patient, but sometime soon, they’ll make sure you have some unexpected trouble, and maybe you’ll call the number on the card. And if you don’t, you’ll have some worse trouble down the line.”

Anden took a quick drag on his cigarette and ground it out. He saw now why he’d been asked here at last: The Pillar might not have forgiven him, but neither did he want a member of his family, disowned or not, to be left vulnerable and potentially manipulated by the enemy.

“Andy,” Hilo said, and though his voice was still hard, there was a pained edge to it that made Anden finally meet his cousin’s eyes. The Pillar’s mouth twisted as he ground out his own cigarette. “You’re my brother; if you’d come to your senses, if you’d asked to return at any time this past year, if you’d spoken to me and admitted you made a mistake—the way I admitted I was at fault too—I would’ve forgiven you at once. I’d have welcomed you back; how could I not? But you never did that. You stayed away from the family and wasted a year of your life.”

“You said you never wanted to see me again,” Anden mumbled.

“Who doesn’t ever say the wrong things when they’re angry?” Hilo snapped. “You humiliated yourself that day, humiliated the clan, and insulted me in doing it.”

Anger and resentment rose and dispelled Anden’s guilt. “Would you have welcomed me back even if I refused to wear jade? Or am I only worth anything to you as a Green Bone?”

“You were meant to be a Green Bone,” Hilo said. “You’re fooling yourself if you think otherwise. Shae took off her jade and went away; she tried to pretend to be someone else and look what happened. If she hadn’t done that, maybe everything would be different. Maybe it would still be Lan sitting in this room instead of me. Refusing to wear jade, you’re like a goose that won’t go near water.” Hilo blew out a harsh sigh. “Don’t try to tell me that you don’t think about it.”

He did; of course he did. The memory of jade, of the power it had given him, the ecstatic terror of that last battle when he’d killed one of the most powerful Green Bones in Janloon—sometimes it stirred in him a longing that was almost sexual in its intensity, in its sheer animal hunger. Anden’s eyes dropped involuntarily to the top of Hilo’s shirt, the first two buttons left undone as usual. Looking at the long line of jade stones studding his cousin’s collarbone, Anden felt conflicting fear and yearning pull his insides taut. He still wanted to be a Kaul.

Yet stronger than the craving loomed the specter of madness and a life lived in constant terror of himself. Whenever he contemplated the idea of putting on jade again, black memories forced themselves into his mind: his mother’s screams of insanity before her death from the Itches; Lan on the last day Anden had seen him alive—worn down, volatile, and weakened from carrying too much jade and drugging himself with shine; and Anden himself, after the battle with Gont, waking up in the hospital parched and feverish, half-mad with a thirst for jade and killing.

He shook his head. “I won’t do it, Hilo-jen. Jade will turn me into a monster. I’m still grateful to the family and loyal to the clan; I’ll do anything you ask of me—except wear green.”

Hilo did not reply at first. Anden did not dare to say anything more, and the silence stretched between them. When the Pillar spoke again, his voice was resigned, devoid of the anger that Anden realized had been a sign of how much he’d wished for a different outcome between them, how dearly he’d hoped it would not come down to what he was about to say. “I’m sending you to Espenia. Shae’s made all of the arrangements. You’ll leave next week.”

Anden stared, not believing it at first. “Espenia?”

“You’re no use to me here if you won’t be a Green Bone. You can’t stay in Marenia; I won’t have you guarded day and night so you can carve rocking chairs and pick seashells on the beach while the Mountain decides when to make a move. If you won’t wear jade, you’ll need to do something else with your life. You’ll go to Espenia and get an education there.”

“I’ve never been to Espenia,” Anden protested.

“You’re half-Espenian. You should learn about that country, learn the language,” Hilo said. Anden was so astonished he couldn’t speak at first. Hilo had never pointed out his foreign side, never suggested that Andy was not truly Kekonese and a full member of the Kaul family.

This sudden change, perhaps more than anything else, was so hurtful that Anden lost the rest of his composure. “You want to be rid of me,” he choked out. “You’re exiling me.”

“Godsdamnit, Andy,” Hilo snarled, “for the last time: Will you kneel and take your oaths again to me as Pillar, then put on your jade and be a Green Bone, a part of this family?”