Jade War

Wen put a blanket down in a shady spot on the lawn near the play structure and let the boys run off to play while she watched the baby try to crawl toward the grass. Jaya would be her last child; she’d given Hilo a son (two sons, really) and a daughter. Kehn and Lina were married and expecting a child as well. Wen was still working on Tar, but the family’s future was more secure than before. The baby was still too young—certainly Hilo would say so—but now that the guesthouse was renovated, Kaul Wan Ria could move back to Janloon and help care for the children so Wen could return to work, both as a designer and in any other capacity the Weather Man could find for her. Over the past few years, she’d continued to meet informers at the Celestial Radiance on a reduced schedule, but felt there was more she could do. She paid close attention to the clan issues that her husband and brothers talked about, and even when they’d moved on to other topics, she kept thinking about what she’d heard. She almost never forgot the face or name of a person she had met so she knew almost everyone of importance in the clan. She continued taking classes in interior design and Espenian, she perused the reports from the Weather Man’s office that Shae brought over to the house for Hilo, and she read the newspaper every day, even when she was exhausted from dealing with the children and it was the last thing she did before going to sleep.

She did all this because often, as she lay next to Hilo in bed at night, he would share with her some problem he was dealing with or some question in his mind, and in that moment, she would know to say, “You should tell Kehn to assign the job to Lott Jin; he’s coming up on promotion to Fist this year, isn’t he?” or “You’re already going to meet with the mayor next week; why not bring those two Lantern Men with you, and you can raise the issue with everyone in the room?” Hilo would consider her words and say, “That’s what I was thinking too” or “I hadn’t thought of that, but it’s a good idea, love,” and then he would wrap his arms around her, give her a kiss, and with his mind cleared, he would fall asleep in seconds.

Wen always felt the greatest sense of accomplishment in those few minutes before she followed her husband into sleep. At those times, she knew she’d been a true help to the family and the clan. All her life, she’d harbored a powerful resentment: If she hadn’t been born with the deficiency of jade immunity, she might’ve gone to the Academy and become a Green Bone. But now she thought, if she’d been born a different person, she might not have ended up meeting and marrying Kaul Hilo and having children with him, so perhaps it was all meant to be.

Wen had prepared a picnic of cold noodle salad, pickled cucumber, fried nuts, and stuffed buns. When she called the boys back for lunch, they predictably ate only a little of it before running off again. Wen packed up the remaining food, then nursed and changed Jaya. She saw the white Duchesse Priza pull up to the curb beside the park, and for a hopeful second she thought that Hilo’s schedule had miraculously cleared and he had come in person to join them. Then she saw her brother at the wheel and deduced that the Pillar was still busy and had asked Kehn to go in his place to pick them up. Wen called the boys back from where they were running around on the playground and told them it was time to go. She put Jaya in the carriage and pushed it toward the car with one hand, carrying Ru on her hip with the other. Kehn opened the door to get out and meet them.

The Duchesse exploded in a ball of fire.

One second it was there; in the next, Wen was stumbling backward, a scream strangling in her throat. Out of instinct, she seized Niko and yanked him close to her, turning her back to shield him and Ru from the heat of the inferno, which she could feel against her skin even from fifty meters away. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw that the windows and doors of the Pillar’s distinctive white sedan were gone. Twisted pieces of metal littered the street; flames and smoke poured from the openings of the wreckage. Parents ran for their children, screaming.