Jade War

“It’s all right, Mrs. Dauk,” Anden said, warmth rising into his face. “I need to practice my Espenian if I’m to get any good at it. Your son was only being helpful, as he… often seems to be.”

“Sana,” Dauk Losun called. “How long before dinner?”

“It’s ready,” his wife called in reply, rushing back into the kitchen and bringing out a steel pot, which she placed on a trivet in the center of the table. “The pork stew is not quite done, but everything else is. I’ll bring it out later. Don’t stand there everyone; sit down and start eating!”

It was crowded around the table with six people. Dauk Sana had made more than enough food—spicy cabbage, shrimp with lemon chili sauce, and the belated vinegar pork stew, which had generous chunks of mushroom and egg in it—all of it traditional, homey Kekonese food, with the exception of the long, thick, dark salted crackers that went around the table in a basket; Espenians seemed to serve them as an accompaniment at every meal, for scooping up food like a spoon and dipping into soups and stews. Anden was seated next to Dauk Coru, who ate heartily and, like a good Kekonese son, complimented his mother on all the dishes.

Anden tried desperately to think of a way to start a normal conversation with his neighbor at the table without bringing up their awkward prior encounters. He kept glancing over, trying to see if he could spot the jade Coru wore. Anden leaned over, deliberately timing his reach for the basket of crackers so that his arm brushed close to the other man’s. A tingle went through his elbow and deep into his bones; he felt a firm tug in his gut, like a steel hook on the mouth of a fish before it’s yanked from the water. Anden broke into a sweat; it had been a long time since he’d been close enough to feel another’s jade aura. After such an absence, his own body’s unmistakable, longing reaction to the proximity of jade made him nearly dizzy. He shivered and drew his arm away.

“So, how long are you here for?” Coru asked.

“Hm?” Anden hastily pulled himself together. “Ah, two years. Long enough for me to complete the language immersion program and get an associate degree. That’s the plan, anyway.”

Coru took another mouthful of food without asking a follow-up question. After an unwieldy pause, Anden said, “So… Coru-jen, I hear you’re a student too. You’re going to law school?”

The other young man looked up at him and laughed. “Nobody calls me Coru except my parents and their friends. Everyone else calls me Cory.” He wiped his hand and held it out to shake Anden’s. “Now that we’ve met properly, yeah, I’m going into the law program at Watersguard U next fall. I’m taking this year off to do some community volunteering and save up tuition money working as a paralegal. And I’m planning to travel the country for six weeks next summer.” He tilted his chin up and raised his voice so his father could hear him. “Before I’m forced to follow in my sister’s footsteps.”

“You have an older sister?” Anden asked.

“Three of them.” Cory shook his head. “Feel free to pity me.”

Anden didn’t know what it was like to have so many sisters, but he too was the youngest in his family and had three older siblings, so to speak, and he said so. Cory got up from the table and took a framed family photograph from the mantel. Showing it to Anden, he said, “My oldest sister’s the lawyer; she works in the federal Industry Department. Her husband’s an engineer; they don’t have kids, though. My second sister studied nursing; now she stays at home with her two little ones. The third one—that’s her—she graduated with a degree in social work and got married just last year.”

All the Dauks bore family resemblance in the shape of their smiles and the broadness of their shoulders. Anden wanted to ask if any of Cory’s sisters were also Green Bones, but he’d made so many cultural mistakes and wrong assumptions in Espenia so far that he was hesitant. If the people here hid their jade, maybe it was rude to publicly ask if someone was a Green Bone. He studied the family photo appreciatively for another minute before handing it back to Cory.

“Your younger son is still at Watersguard, isn’t he?” said Dauk Losunyin to the Hians. “How’s he doing there? Is he still working on his doctorate?” The conversation between the four elders veered into talk and sundry complaints about their grown children, then turned to gossip about neighbors in the Kekonese parts of Southtrap. To Anden, it all seemed like talk that was far too common to be worth a Pillar’s attention, but Dauk Losun propped a heavy elbow on the table and listened with chin on fist as Mrs. Hian bemoaned the increasing traffic in front of their house and expressed concern about the couple across the street, the ones who were constantly fighting.