Jade War

“Good,” said Hilo. “Then we can all sit down together and be properly introduced.” He looked around the living room curiously. It was a small but bright space that smelled of floral air freshener. Eyni had always liked art; there were clay masks and small square watercolors on the walls and a wicker bowl on the coffee table that held fruits made out of felt, as well as, incongruously, a bright green plastic rattle in the shape of a frog. Eyni was trying to appear calm, but he could Perceive her heart beating, her distrust blaring like a red siren, and it irritated him. There were times when it was useful to inspire fear, when he needed to do so, but when he had no intention to frighten, the reaction was a bit offensive. He sat down on the sofa and, with a glance, bade Tar to do the same. Hilo picked up the rattle. “Where’s my nephew?”

“He’s napping,” Eyni said quickly, but at that moment, a noise came from another room and Hilo got up to see a toddler standing and clutching the white metal rails of a baby gate at the end of the hall. Hilo went to the child and crouched down on his knees. The two-year-old barely resembled the plump baby in the photograph Wen had shown him; now he had the features of a Kaul—the nose and mouth, the watchful eyes. Hilo could already tell that he would grow up to be the spitting image of Lan, in the same way that Lan had resembled their father. That seemed to be the way it was, with firstborn Kaul sons. The boy stared at Hilo with great interest, entirely unafraid. His left eye squinted slightly and he reached through the bars of the gate with a chubby hand. Hilo, entranced, put his hand out to the child, who grasped his fingers.

“Hello, Niko,” said the Pillar. “I’m your uncle Hilo.”

Eyni pushed past him and took the rattle as she opened the gate and picked up Nikolas, who gave a squeal of protest as she shushed him and carried him back into the nursery. The boy squirmed and reached out over his mother’s shoulder as he was taken away.

A sudden and all-consuming protectiveness seized Hilo. He’d only just met the child, but now he regretted that he hadn’t come earlier. He should’ve come as soon as Wen had shown him the letter and not waited. He almost reached out to seize Eyni’s arm, to prevent her from hurrying Niko away mere seconds after he’d finally laid eyes on the boy.

Eyni disappeared into the other room, then reemerged a minute later, closing the door behind her. “He should be sleeping,” she explained. “He’s been fighting naps lately. If he gets too excited, he won’t settle down and then he’ll be cranky this evening.” She led the way back down the hall without looking at her former brother-in-law. Hilo followed at something of a distance. Once in the living room again, he said, with a greater sense of determination, “We need to talk, Eyni. It’s true we didn’t use to be friends; maybe I wasn’t ever really like a brother to you and you weren’t ever really like a sister to me, but that’s not important now. We have to think about what’s best for Niko. We need to talk about you returning to Janloon.”

Eyni was facing away from him, her back rigid. When she turned around, her arms were crossed and her expression was tight with suppressed anger and stubborn resolve. “You shouldn’t have come here, Hilo,” she said. “I told your wife not to contact me again, and I didn’t respond to your last two letters for a reason. I’ve put the past behind me.”

Hilo’s face twisted in a flash of annoyance. “You wrote to Lan. I saw the letter; you said you wanted your son to know his father and you were willing to move back to Kekon.”

“That was two years ago,” Eyni exclaimed. “I hadn’t been in Lybon for long, and after Niko was born, I felt so alone and unsure about everything. I still loved and missed Lan, but then I learned through friends—friends, because no one in the clan even bothered to tell me—that he was dead. Murdered. In some ridiculous Green Bone war that had taken over the whole city.”

“You’d left the family,” Hilo said, without sympathy. “That’s why you weren’t told.”

“Yes,” Eyni said quietly. “It took me some time, but I finally did leave. I have a life here with Lors now. We have a home and friends. We’ve no reason to go back to Kekon.”

“No reason?” Hilo was flabbergasted, but he forced himself to take several seconds to compose a reply; he knew that his temper could sometimes cause him to say things that could not be unsaid. In as patient a voice as he could manage, he said, “I admit I don’t know much about Lybon, but I know it’s no place to raise a Green Bone. There are hardly any Kekonese people here. What kind of life could Niko possibly have in Stepenland? He’ll always be an outsider. He needs to grow up in Janloon, where his family is.”

“Lors and I are his family,” Eyni replied.

“This man, your boyfriend, he’s not Kekonese. And is he really willing to raise a child that isn’t his? Are you even married?”