by Fonda Lee
“If it comes to that,” Wen said. “I don’t think it will.”
“I don’t think so either,” he assured her. “It’s still important, though, that we get married today, just in case.”
“Just in case,” she agreed. She rubbed the gathering of tears from her eyes and stepped out of his embrace. “I’ll get changed. Give me a few minutes.”
He sat down in the front room and waited, thinking, as he looked around, that this really was a nice house, that he would’ve enjoyed living in it with her, the way it was now. Wen returned a few minutes later, wearing makeup, a soft, pretty blue dress, and a pearl necklace and earrings. Hilo smiled and stood to offer her his arm, and they went out into the courtyard to be wed.
Judge Ledo, a man well trusted and paid by the clan, had been summoned to officiate the marriage. Kehn and Shae stood as witnesses. The civil ceremony took only a few minutes, not the hour or more of chanting that would’ve been involved under Deitist tradition, but the legal marriage vows still harkened to the Divine Virtues.
I will practice humility: putting my beloved before myself, expecting no praise or reward, for now we are joined in all things.
I will practice compassion: giving gratitude for my beloved, suffering when they suffer, for now we are joined in all things.
I will practice courage: protecting my beloved from harm, facing all fears from within or without, for now we are joined in all things.
I will practice goodness: offering freely of myself to my beloved, honoring and caring for each other in body and soul, for now we are joined in all things.
I make this pledge to you and you alone, under the eyes of the gods in Heaven, from this moment until the last one of my life.
Wen’s expression weakened, fighting tears, as Hilo repeated after Judge Ledo, reciting the final words. From this moment until the last one of my life. How long would that be? Hilo felt the vows settle into him, binding him with a different power than the clan oaths that had directed his entire adult life. Already he felt a curious compulsion to try to reconcile the two sets of pledges, sensing the impossibilities he’d encounter in the attempt. Gazing at Wen’s lovely, trusting face, he was struck with remorse that he couldn’t, even with the consuming love he felt for her, promise not to break her heart. Because there were times a man couldn’t be loyal to a brother and compassionate to his wife at the same time. A jade warrior couldn’t truly be joined in all things with his beloved, not when he’d promised his blood to the clan.
Wen took a steadying breath and said her vows with a strength that made him admire and appreciate her all the more. Kehn stepped forward to tie their wrists together with strips of cloth, right to left on each side as they faced each other, and Shae placed the cup of hoji in their joined hands. They both drank from it, then poured it on the ground to call forth good luck. Judge Ledo pronounced them married.
Hilo knew it was a poor wedding for the Pillar of the clan. He was deeply sorry for having robbed Wen of the grand and joyful occasion she deserved. But the important thing was that she was his wife now, and if she became his widow tomorrow, she’d have everything he’d promised to leave her. The Mountain couldn’t touch assets bequeathed to family members through wills. Wen would have enough to start up a new life, a safer life, in Espenia. And for now at least, he was her husband, and that made him happy, happier than he’d been in a long time.
He took Wen to the main house and up to his room, where he shut the door and undressed her and made love to her. They kept the soft lamplight on and took turns guiding each other, not speaking in words but with the silent brushing of skin across skin, the contact of fingertips and mouths, the merging of breaths. Hilo ached to stretch this oasis of time to its breaking point; whenever he crested toward climax, he denied himself and turned his attention to Wen instead, until she was spent with pleasure and whispering sweetly for him to give in. At last, with fierce desperation and quivering reluctance, he found release, and afterward tried to stay awake long enough to burn the merciful moment so indelibly into his mind that he could be certain it would be the last thing he would remember.
CHAPTER
53
Brothers-In-Arms
Anden arrived at the Kaul house late in the evening on New Year’s Eve. The Academy had let out for the holiday week, and throughout the day students had been departing campus to spend the break with their families. Anden had been slow to pack his bags and leave. The Pillar had spoken to him at length the day before, so he knew what to expect when he arrived, but for much of the day he hadn’t felt ready to face what lay next. Instead, he walked the grounds of the Academy, trying to soak in the feeling of the home that he would soon be leaving. For many years, he’d thought of the Academy as a place of necessary hardship and tribulation, of sweat and chores, of modest meals, little leisure, and unsympathetic masters. Now, though, he realized that it was a haven, a refuge where Green Bone honor was an untainted goal, the only place where a person could wear jade and practice the jade disciplines in true safety.
The two weeks of final Trials had passed in a blur. After so many years of preparation and feverish last-minute studying and training, the conclusion of academic and martial testing had seemed almost anticlimactic to Anden. He’d been most worried about his science and math exams, and they’d been the first ones in his schedule. After that, there were no major surprises. He improved marginally on most of his scores from Pre-Trials, especially Deflection. On the last day, he wore his jade and fought four of the Academy’s Green Bone teaching assistants in a row over thirty grueling minutes. By the end, he was exhausted and battered but still standing, panting but ready to continue. It was not for nothing that Hilo had beaten him and taught him to always get up again.
The masters made notes on their clipboards and nodded in dismissal. Anden had saluted them and walked out of the testing hall with barely more pride and triumph than he might’ve felt after completing a menial chore like washing the floor. At least that’s over with. He would graduate; that was the important thing. These tests weren’t real. The real ones were yet to come.
When he got to the Kaul house, Anden went straight into the courtyard where the Pillar was sitting at the shaded table with the entire family. They were finishing up a New Year’s Eve dinner, and the delicious smells made Anden’s mouth water: roast suckling pig, seafood soup, spicy shrimp in sauce, pea shoots with garlic, fried greens. Anden only got food that good once or twice a year, but it was a modest holiday meal for a family like the Kauls, who in the past had hosted expansive public New Year’s feasts. Anden stopped to take in the scene. His cousin Hilo was sitting at one end of the table in a black suit, his back to Anden. Wen leaned close directly on his left, her hand on his leg as if to hold him in place in his seat. Shae sat at the other end. Between them on one side were the Maik brothers, and on the other sat Kaul Sen in a wheelchair with Kyanla poised nearby. There was an empty seat and place setting saved for Anden.
For a second, Anden stood, the poignancy of the moment burrowing into him with a pain that made it hard to take another step. The picture was incomplete; Lan was missing from it and so too was any sense of joviality. The voices were muted, the postures tense. Even from a distance, the gathering had the feeling of a funeral vigil rather than a New Year’s family feast. Only Hilo seemed remotely relaxed or happy. He brushed aside Wen’s reach for the teapot and personally refilled the cups around the table. He helped himself to another serving of roast pork, said something lighthearted to Tar, who nodded but didn’t smile, and he wrapped an arm lazily around Wen’s waist.
Hilo looked over his shoulder at Anden. He smiled and rose from his seat to walk toward him. “Andy, you’re late. There’s barely any food left.” He embraced his cousin warmly, then led him to his place at the table, next to their grandfather.
“Sorry, Hilo-jen,” Anden said as he sat down. “It took me longer than I thought it would to get out of the Academy. And the traffic was bad. New Year’s week after all.”
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“You should have called me to send a car.” Hilo shoved Anden’s head in mock admonishment and doled food onto his plate. Contrary to what Hilo had said, there was still plenty of it sitting on the table. “The Trials are over; you’re not a student anymore. You don’t need to be riding around on a bike or taking the bus.”
“Congratulations on the end of Trials, Anden,” Shae said.
“Thanks, Shae-jen,” Anden said, not quite meeting her eyes.
Their grandfather seemed to rouse from picking at the small morsels of food on his plate. He turned his wizened head toward Anden, his eyes suddenly narrowed and piercing in their intensity. “So you’re one of us now. Mad Witch’s boy.”
Anden froze with a spoonful of soup poised in midair. He set it back down in his bowl, sickly warmth climbing into his throat and face. Kaul Sen said, “I hope you carry jade better than your ma. Ah, she was green, all right, a green lady monster—but she went out worse than even her father and brothers.” He leveled a bony finger and shook it at Anden. “I said to Lan, when he brought you here: ‘That mixed-blood boy is like a cross between a goat and a tiger—who knows what he’ll be?’”
Hilo stared at his grandfather and spoke in a voice so lethal Anden cringed at the sound. “Kyanla, I think it’s past Grandda’s bedtime, don’t you?”
Kyanla sprang up. “Come, come, Kaul-jen,” she fussed, hurrying to pull his wheelchair from the table and take him back into the house. “Time to rest.”
“Mind your jade, Mad Witch’s boy,” Kaul Sen said in parting.
The table had fallen silent. Hilo let out a long sigh and threw his napkin onto the table. “He’s not well,” he explained to Anden apologetically. “Losing jade tolerance does things to old people, up here.” He tapped the side of his head.
Anden nodded mutely. Kaul Sen had never been cruel to him. When Anden had been seven years old, the man had seemed like a god, and as recently as a year ago, he’d been strong and hale. He’d said to Anden, “You belong in this family, boy. You’ll be as powerful a Green Bone as my own grandsons.”
“Ignore him,” Hilo said now. “Go on, Andy, eat. The rest of you stop looking so damned gloomy. This is a happy night: Andy’s finished the Trials. I’m a married man. It’s warm, spring is on the way, it’s New Year’s Eve. You know what they say about the first day setting your luck for the rest of the year. Don’t start it in bad spirits.”
Anden forced himself to chew and swallow. He felt terrible; he’d made things worse by arriving. Putting on a weak but heroic smile, he said, “Congratulations on your wedding, Hilo-jen. You look especially beautiful tonight, sister Wen.”
“Now that’s more like it,” Hilo said. “Thank you, Andy.”
Wen smiled thinly, but Anden thought she was studying him with a particularly anxious expression. Her brothers, sitting opposite Anden, seemed the most unhappy tonight. Kehn and Tar had not spoken a word since Anden’s appearance, and when they glanced at him, it was with something approaching resentment. Anden avoided meeting their eyes. It was the place of the Horn and the Pillarman to protect the Pillar with their own lives; they could hardly be faulted for begrudging Anden his part in what would happen tomorrow.
Hilo said, “You know what we should’ve had today? Candy coins. We always had candy coins on New Year’s Eve when we were kids, didn’t we, Shae?” And gradually, limp conversation returned. Anden ate as quickly as he could manage, not wanting to prolong the suffering around the table.
Kyanla returned to clear the dishes, and the family stood slowly, lingering for a minute, glad for dinner to be over, yet reluctant to leave. Shae came over to Anden and put a hand on his arm. It seemed a deeply apologetic gesture, and Anden knew what she was apologizing for. With Shae so close, he could feel the jade on her, the slightly brittle prickle of her aura, a sensation that had been absent when he’d sat across from her over dinner at the barbecue house a seeming eternity ago.
“I was wrong,” she said in a low voice. “I didn’t listen to you. I …”
“I know, Shae-jen,” he said. “You don’t have to say it.”
“What you’re doing now, I didn’t want Hilo to ask it of you. I argued with him about it, told him he was putting you in a terrible position, but he’s convinced it’s the best chance of saving the clan. I’m sorry I couldn’t talk him out of it.”
“I understand,” Anden said. “It’s my choice.”
Hilo whispered something to Wen, who nodded and departed with her brothers. The Pillar said, “Come with me, Andy. Let’s talk inside.”
“Should I bring my bag into the guest room?” Anden asked.
“Leave it. We’ll bring it in later.” Hilo led him, not into the main house, but toward the training hall. When they got there, he flicked on the lights, and they blazed to life over the long wooden floor. A cramp took brief hold of Anden’s chest. He remembered the last time he’d been in here, the last time he’d seen Lan alive.
Hilo slid the door closed and turned to face Anden. The relaxed manner he’d displayed at dinner was gone, replaced with an equally familiar dangerous intensity. It amazed Anden that his cousin could move between the two states with such speed. “You’ve had a chance to think about it some more,” Hilo said. “You think you can do what I’m asking?”
Anden nodded. He felt, suddenly, as if this was the moment of true commitment, this was where his entire existence had been leading. The Pillar was counting on him, and him alone, in the clan’s time of need. “I won’t let you down.”
“I know you won’t, Andy.” Hilo looked stricken for a moment. “We need to prepare for tomorrow, but we should do this right. I’m asking you to act on behalf of the clan, on behalf of me, and that makes you a Green Bone of No Peak. The graduation ceremony hasn’t happened yet, but you’re through the Trials, so you can take oaths. Do you know them by heart, or do you need me to say them with you?”
“I know them,” Anden said. He knelt on the floor in front of his cousin and raised his clasped hands to his head. His voice came out strong and steady.
“The clan is my blood, and the Pillar is its master. I have been chosen and trained to carry the gift of the gods for the good and protection of the people, and against all enemies of the clan, no matter their strength or numbers. I join myself to the fellowship of jade warriors, freely and with my whole being, and I will call them my brothers-in-arms. Should I ever be disloyal to my brother, may I die by the blade. Should I ever fail to come to the aid of my brother, may I die by the blade. Should I ever seek personal gain at the expense of my brother, may I die by the blade. Under the eyes of all the gods in Heaven, I pledge this. On my honor, my life, and my jade.”
Anden touched his head to the floor near Hilo’s feet.
Hilo raised Anden to his feet and embraced him. “Brother,” he said.
CHAPTER
54
Be Like Baijen
Late in the day on the first of the year, Hilo and Anden drove into the Docks and arrived unmolested at the front of the Twice Lucky shortly before sundown. Hilo made Anden drive. “I want to make sure you don’t damage my car on the way back,” he said. It had been some time since Lan had taught Anden to drive in one of the family’s old cars, and the teen was so nervous behind the wheel of his cousin’s prized automobile that he crawled the monstrous sedan like an old lady all the way there, and Hilo teased him for it. “The Duchesse Priza is a fucking powerhouse and you’re driving it like a pedal cart.”
“You could’ve had Kehn or Tar drive,” Anden protested.
“I couldn’t,” Hilo said. “You saw how upset they were last night.”
Their arrival was anticipated. The Duchesse’s slow approach had been seen and reported long before they got anywhere near the Docks, so when they pulled up in front of the Twice Lucky and Anden turned off the engine, the first thing Hilo saw was that the parking lot appeared to be clear of any real customers. Only a few large black cars like Gont’s ZT Valor were parked in the side lot, and there was
a small crowd of Mountain Green Bones gathered in front of the entrance to the restaurant.
Hilo waited in the car for a minute. He could Perceive the eagerness of the men outside, and the implacable aura of Gont Asch rolling like a black boulder through the interior of the Twice Lucky toward the front door. And most clearly of all, he Perceived his cousin’s dread beside him, the rapid beating of Anden’s heart, and he was impressed that the young man’s face betrayed so little of his fear. Hilo put a hand on Anden’s shoulder, rested it there for a few seconds, then got out of the car. He took off his jacket and laid it on the passenger side seat, then he shut the door and strode toward the gathered enemy. After a moment, he sensed and heard Anden get out and follow twenty paces behind him, his heartbeat still loud in Hilo’s Perception.
Gont Asch stood before him now, in a leather vest with moon blade at the waist, flanked by a dozen of his warriors. Hilo stopped a short distance away. For all their mutual enmity, the two men rarely faced each other in person, and for the span of several unhurried breaths they stood regarding the other. No one else spoke or moved; they watched the unfolding exchange. At last, Hilo said, “You know, this is my favorite restaurant.”
“I can see why,” rumbled Gont.
“Have you tried the crispy squid balls?”
“I eat them nearly every day,” said the Horn of the Mountain.
Hilo’s left eye squinted and his lips pulled back in a tight grin. “I’m envious.” He glanced up and down the line of seasoned Mountain fighters, certain some of them were wearing the jade of his slain Fists. “All right,” he said. “I’m here. It was a low thing you did to Eiten, you fuckers.” He spat to the side. “Any man who challenges me with a clean blade, I’d give him respect. But you stole a warrior’s dignity to get my attention. Well, you have it now.”
