by Fonda Lee
“I appreciate you going out of your way,” Lan said.
“It wasn’t any trouble.” Anden wanted to ask what was inside, but from the way Lan quickly slid the envelope into a drawer and closed it, he was sure it wasn’t a question the Pillar would answer. Lan took a towel from a hook on the wall and wiped the sheen of sweat from his face. “How’s school?”
“Fine. Only a few months left.”
“Do you feel ready for the Trials?”
“I think so.”
Lan turned away and tossed the towel into a bin by the door. “What’s your strongest discipline?”
“Channeling, probably.”
Lan nodded. “Your weakest?”
“Um. Deflection, I suppose.”
“How are your academics? Math, and languages, and so on?”
“I’m passing all of them.” Anden skirted barely above average in the book study aspects of a Green Bone education. “Don’t worry, Lan-jen, they won’t pull my final rank down much.”
Lan said, a touch sternly, “I’m not worried about your rank, Anden. I’m asking about school because I’m sure there’s a lot of talk on campus these days about the clans. You’re bound to hear a lot of rumors and opinions, if you haven’t already. I don’t want you to feel upset or distracted by it; just focus on your own studies.”
“I will,” Anden promised.
Lan gave Anden an approving pat on the shoulder and gestured at the empty training hall. “Well, since we’re in here, how about some Deflection practice?”
Anden tried to think of a good excuse to decline. He didn’t relish the idea of being put on the spot with the Pillar of No Peak watching him, but Lan was already crossing to the other side of the room and taking a set of darts from the shelf.
“You have your training band with you?” Lan asked.
Anden laid his schoolbag next to the wall. It’s just Lan. He wants to be helpful; he’s not going to make me feel bad. Hilo and Shae were like true cousins to him, but Lan was much older and had always been more like an uncle. Anden dug around in the front compartment of his bag and pulled out the plastic case containing his training band. As a year-eight, he was allowed to carry it at all times and to use it under the supervision of an adult Green Bone. It was a simple leather band with a snap closure and three jade stones. If he kept his scores up, he could expect to get four in the spring.
Anden fastened it around his left wrist, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Every time he put on jade, he felt, just for a second, the moment of resistance that one feels before jumping off a high diving board or ripping off a sticky bandage. An instant of ah, this is going to hurt—and then it was done. He rode out the initial rush of adjustment, opened his eyes, and went to stand across the room, facing Lan.
Lan finished loading the darts into a dart gun. “Easy warm up,” he said.
He fired the darts at Anden, one at a time. Anden Deflected each one, and they sunk into the corkboard-covered wall behind him. Darts were light and moved slowly. Deflection became exponentially more difficult with faster speeds, heavier items, and multiple objects. Lan moved on to the pellet gun, which Anden didn’t find too hard—throwing up faster, wider Deflections was not a problem for him—but he labored with throwing knives, especially two or more from different directions.
“Maintain control of them,” Lan said. “Slingshot them around and make them your weapons.”
Anden nodded, though he’d heard the same advice from his Deflection instructor a hundred times and was still not anywhere near as capable as he wished he was. When he Deflected the knives, they lost momentum and sailed into the ground behind him. Ideally, he could whip them accurately anywhere into the wall, or even, as Lan said, around his own body like a boomerang and back out with even greater speed. Anden rocked on the balls of his feet, shaking out his limbs, trying to stay relaxed and focused and not think about how he was disappointing his cousin.
“Ready?” Lan whipped another knife at him—nice and straight—and Anden swept his arm out in a tight, arcing Deflection. He felt it catch the knife and veer the weapon off course. Straining, he kept the momentum of the Deflection going as he pivoted tightly, and with a surge of effort, he circled it around himself and flung the knife back out toward Lan.
It didn’t go far before it curved toward the ground, but Lan raised a Deflection of his own and straightened it out. He lunged and caught the knife out of the air. “Nicely done!” His face lit with a pride that made Anden warm. “Most new Green Bones aren’t able to do that. Keep practicing and you’ll ace the Trials.”
“I hope so,” Anden said weakly. He put his hands on his knees and bent over to catch his breath. Lan filled a paper cup with water from the cooler in the corner and brought it to him. Anden took it gratefully, but was struck again by the harsh texture of the Pillar’s aura. The jade fastened around his wrist made it worse, much louder. He nearly pulled away.
Thankfully, his cousin crossed the room again and opened a storage cabinet. He rolled out half a dozen large plastic pop bottles filled with sand, the lids sealed with silver duct tape. Lan set them up like an array of bowling pins. “We shouldn’t neglect offense,” he said. Anden’s stomach sank a little. Offensive Deflection was his weakest area, and Lan was watching him from the side of the room with an expression that seemed unusually expectant. He’d always taken an interest in Anden’s progress, but he’d never been pushy or demanding. Now, though, he said, “Go on, what are you waiting for?”
Anden drew in a slow breath. He focused on the heavy bottles, gathered his energy, and ripped a low wave of Deflection across the room. The first bottle tottered and fell over, knocking over the one next to it, but the others didn’t move.
“Not bad,” Lan said. He reset the bottles. “Try again.”
The bottles were heavy, the training hall was long, and Anden was losing steam. His second try toppled three bottles in a row, but that took the rest of the wind out of him. His third Deflection barely tipped over one bottle, and his fourth merely nudged it out of place.
Lan said, “Come on, Anden, you’re not really trying now.”
“I’m sorry,” Anden said. “I’m just tired.” He’d already been to advanced Strength training in the morning, which was always exhausting. He hadn’t known his visit to the Kaul house would result in an impromptu exam.
Lan snapped, “Do you expect to use that excuse in a life-or-death situation? Do it again.”
Anden tried to muster the energy. He rooted more firmly into his stance and raised both hands, feeling them tingle and quiver with tension, then thrust them down and forward with as powerful an expulsion of breath and energy as he could summon. His Deflection tore across the room but went wide, rattling the cabinet doors as if they were in an earthquake. The bottles did not budge.
Lan rubbed a hand over his eyes. “If you can’t knock over a bottle full of sand, how are you going to throw a man off his feet? Or defend yourself if someone tries to do it to you?”
“I’m not a Green Bone yet,” Anden protested, slumping apologetically. “I’ll practice harder; I’ve still got some time.”
“You’ll only be a student for a few more months.” Lan’s face hardened and his voice rose abruptly. “The Mountain’s already shown that they’re paying attention to you, Anden. They’ve tried to kill both Hilo and me, and when you’re no longer protected by the code of aisho, your life will be up for the taking as well, by enemies with far more jade and experience. You can’t be too tired or weak to defend yourself, ever!”
With one arm, Lan hurled a funnel of Deflection across the room, throwing the bottles into the air. They crashed into the back wall and thudded to the ground, rolling on the floor. Lan didn’t even look at them. He strode over and seized Anden by the arm, hauling him up straight. The Pillar’s voice was a low growl. “You’re graduating into a war, Anden. You have to be ready for what it means to be a Kaul, or you won’t survive. Understand?”
Anden gasped. The Pillar’s
fingers dug into his bicep, but the pain came from elsewhere, right through the center of Anden’s skull. So much jade behind Lan’s unfamiliar anger—it startled the breath from Anden’s chest. “Kaul-jen,” he pleaded. He stared into eyes he barely recognized. The irises were bright and glassy as polished marbles, swirling with tempestuous energy. The web of thin red blood vessels surrounding them stood out. Anden swallowed. “Lan?”
The Pillar let go, abruptly, almost shoving Anden back. Lan stared for a second, then shook his head as if to clear it. His jade aura churned, and Anden, without even trying, Perceived the Pillar’s stark anger crash into a muddy jumble of indecipherable emotions. Lan pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, then lowered them and said, more calmly, “I’m sorry, Anden. You didn’t deserve that.”
“It’s okay.” Anden’s voice was a dull, stunned whisper.
“I’ve been short-tempered lately.” Lan turned away. “There’s been a lot to deal with, and so much teetering on the edge. We need to keep the Royal Council and the Lantern Men on our side, and we have to consider the possibility that the Espenians might get involved …” He glanced, inexplicably, at Anden for understanding. He still seemed not quite himself, though he was trying hard to be. “No matter. I was too hard on you just now.”
“No.” Anden was confused, still reeling. “What you said is true.”
“I am proud of you, Anden; I haven’t said it enough.” Lan came back toward him. “Hilo has you pegged for a Fist. With your talent, you’d be an asset to him. But I want you to know it’s your choice. With things as they are now, you might consider other roles in No Peak, or even choosing a path outside of the clan.”
Anden had no response at first. Then his bewilderment flared into defensiveness, and his face turned hot. “I’m not a coward.” He knew he didn’t have the book smarts to be a Luckbringer. There were Green Bones outside of the clan—teachers, doctors, penitents—but how could he consider professions like that in a time like this? “Hilo-jen told me you need as many Green Bones coming out of the Academy as you can get. I owe everything to the clan, to you and Grandda. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t take my oaths?”
Before Lan could answer, there was a sharp knock at the training room door. Woon’s voice came through. “Lan-jen, it’s the mayor of Janloon on the phone.”
Lan glanced toward his Pillarman’s voice, then back at Anden. He stepped away, his expression unreadable. For a second, Anden’s mind prickled uncomfortably with the Perception of some urgent desperation. “I’m sorry, Anden, we’ll talk about this more later.” He began to turn toward the door. “If you wait in the courtyard for a few minutes, I’ll have someone drive you back to the Academy.”
“No, it’s fine,” Anden said. “I can see myself out. I have to go back to the transit station for my bike, and I don’t mind the bus ride.”
Lan paused with his hand on the door and spoke somberly over his shoulder. “I would never suggest you’re a coward, Anden. I only wanted to make it clear that you do have a choice. And no matter what you chose, you’ll always be a Kaul, same as Shae.” The Pillar slid the door open and followed Woon back toward the main house, his overly sharp aura receding along with the shape of his stiff back.
Anden let out a shaky breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. What had happened? He had never seen Lan’s mood swing in such a way before, from warmth to anger to doubt and remorse. Was it the recent stress and new jade that was making him so volatile? Did Lan really think Anden wasn’t ready to join the clan? It was one thing for Anden to doubt himself privately, or to speculate idly on what he might do if he wasn’t already pegged to become a Fist; it was quite another to have the Pillar of the clan suggest such unhelpful thoughts to his face. Was it simply due to his poor performance in Deflection today, or something else?
Turning aside, Anden took off his training band and leaned his forehead against the wall. The jade crash made his anxious stomach flip worse than usual. He sucked in a steadying breath and forced down the sensation as he shut the band back in its plastic case and pushed it into his bag.
Before leaving the training room, Anden collected the scattered bottles full of sand and stored them back in the cabinet. He gathered the throwing knives and pulled the darts out of the wall and returned them to their proper place as well. The Academy was military in its insistence on orderliness. The Deflections he and Lan had thrown had shaken cabinet doors ajar; Anden shut them carefully and was about to push a loose drawer back into place when he paused, his fingers hovering over the slim crack that showed him the white padded envelope he’d brought with him, the one Lan had taken and shut away without explanation.
Anden opened the drawer and took out the package. As he stared at it, an awful temptation ballooned into an even more awful suspicion. Anden’s heart began to pound. He glanced around the empty, tidy training room. If he opened the package, Lan would know he’d done so. There was a small space, however, between the envelope seal and the corner of the flap. Anden pulled it open a little larger. He turned the envelope upside down and shook it, working two fingers under the flap until he touched something smooth and hard, like glass. His hands trembling now, he wriggled out a tiny cylindrical vial of cloudy white liquid.
He knew what it was. What else could it be? Anden’s heart dropped into his feet. He tore open the hole in the envelope, recklessly pulling out vial after vial of the stuff.
His mind spun. It was as he’d feared, and still he couldn’t believe it.
The door of the room opened. Lan stood in the doorway. Anden’s hands fell open; he dropped the envelope and its contents into the open drawer, but his guilt was clear. So was Lan’s; angry shame flooded the Pillar’s face. Anden was sure that if he’d still been wearing his training band, he wouldn’t have been able to stand the furious blaze of his cousin’s aura.
Lan stepped inside and closed the door behind him. It scraped shut with a noise like a blade on a whetstone. “What are you doing, Anden?” Lan’s voice was deceptively monotone.
“You had me pick this up for you. It’s SN1.” Anden’s words sounded choked. He felt the need to hold on to something to steady himself. “How … how could you need shine?”
Lan advanced and Anden, without meaning to, backed away until his shoulders touched the wall. “You had no right to open that package.” Lan had never beaten him before, had never so much as struck him, but now he looked murderous, and Anden felt, for the first time in his life, a flash of fear in his cousin’s presence. He would rather be smacked around a dozen times by Hilo than know he’d infuriated Lan enough to hit him once. Of course, he deserved to be beaten now, and not even thinking to say anything in his own defense, Anden could only blurt, “You’re not sick, are you? With … with the Itches?”
The despair on his face must have been so plain—for in that moment, he imagined Lan dying the sort of death his mother had died, cutting his own flesh and screaming with insanity—that it dispelled the Pillar’s rage. Lan’s face changed, twisted with internal strain. He raised a hand and kept it there, as if to say, Hold on now. “Keep your voice down,” he said, harshly but more calmly than Anden expected, the undercurrent of anger held in check this time. “No, I don’t have the Itches. By the time a person has a full-blown case of the Itches, it’s usually too late for SN1 to save them.” Sympathy rose in his eyes as he realized what Anden had been thinking, but his voice remained hard. “I ought to throw you out of the house for what you just did. I wouldn’t have believed it of you, Anden. But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, so I’ll explain. This isn’t something you can breathe to anyone, not even in the family, do you understand?” Anden was still too distressed to reply, but Lan smacked a hand hard to the wall next to his face. “Do you?” Anden nodded.
Lan said quietly, “Shine is a plague on society. It’s used by people with no natural jade tolerance or training whatsoever—foreigners, criminals, jade-fevered addicts. That’s why the illegal shine trade has to be stam
ped out. But SN1 isn’t all bad. As a drug that blunts the detrimental side effects of jade exposure, it can be useful. There are times when a Green Bone’s natural tolerance needs a boost.” He paused. “You can understand that, can’t you?”
Anden’s mind flashed back to the conversation he’d had with Hilo on the grounds of the Academy, then unwittingly to the memory of his mother in the bathtub. Yes, he understood what Lan was saying. But the Kauls were different—the epitome of impeccable Green Bone blood and schooling. If Kaul Lan, the Pillar of the No Peak clan, needed SN1, what did that mean? Especially for someone like Anden—what hope did he have? His thoughts churned in denial. “It’s all that new jade you’re wearing, isn’t it?” Anden’s voice was an agitated whisper. “Is there something wrong with it? Is it dangerous because it used to belong to Gam?”
Lan managed a humorless smile. “No. Jade is an amplifier; it doesn’t retain energy from its previous owners, no matter what old superstitions you’ve heard.” He turned his face away slightly and his voice fell. “I didn’t get out of the duel unscathed, Anden.” He tapped his chest above his heart. “Gam disrupted something when he Channeled into me. I haven’t been feeling quite right since then. It’s made carrying new jade harder than it should be.”
Worry crowded in. “Have you seen a doctor? The one at the Academy is—”
“I’ve seen Dr. Truw. The healing sessions help, but there’s nothing else to be done for it besides time and rest.” He grimaced, acknowledging that he was in short supply of both those things. Anden understood now why his cousin was so edgy, volatile. He’d been carrying a secret injury along with new green and the pressures of being a wartime Pillar. And now the shame of needing SN1 to be able to bear the jade he’d won in a public duel.
“Don’t wear it, then,” Anden insisted. “Not until you’re better. It’s too much.”
