by Fonda Lee
The remembered terror and euphoria of the jade he’d harnessed—so much jade—filled his mind completely. Nothing else seemed of any importance at all. Wonder and craving gripped him as he looked down at his pale bare arms lying on top of the white bedsheet. He’d killed Gont Asch. Horn of the Mountain, one of the most powerful Green Bones in Janloon. He’d felt the man’s death as if it had been his own, and when the agony of it had passed through him, he’d reveled in the release of the man’s life energy recoiling into his own. Such exhilaration. He’d killed those other two men, too; their deaths had been satisfying, though not quite as memorable. Perhaps only the first kill was so intense? Or was it the strength and jade ability of the man he killed that made the difference?
Ah, jade! It was just as the penitents said: Jade was divine. It came from Heaven, and it could make men into gods. Anden licked his parched lips, wondering where the jade was now, when he would get to put it back on and feel that way again.
And suddenly, he wanted to cry.
He wasn’t normal; he knew that. He’d always suspected such would be the case. The powerful but unstable Aun line mixed with foreign blood and jade sensitivity. Yet he’d been told, and he’d believed, that the rigorous training of the Academy would overcome his deficiencies. Discipline and jade acclimation created Green Bones who were powerful but controlled, not monsters that laughed with the pure sensate joy of reaching out and stopping hearts. Hilo had killed many times, but he was still sane.
Hilo! Anden’s head pounded as he pushed himself up.
A nurse came in, a stout, unsmiling woman who checked some readouts on Anden’s monitor. “Where’s Kaul-jen?” Anden croaked. The woman didn’t answer at first, merely released some medication into his IV tube. “Is he alive?” Anden asked.
“He’s alive,” the nurse said. Anden heard it as if through a gathering fog. Whatever was in the IV tube, it was powerfully sedating. In a minute, he was unconscious.
When he woke again, Hilo was sitting by his bedside. Anden gasped at the sight of him. It was as if the famous youthfulness of his cousin’s face had been siphoned out from under his skin, leaving a scarecrow version of himself. Hilo’s eyes were bruised, his cheek split and stitched, and one wrist was splinted. Despite this, upon seeing Anden awake, he smiled broadly at once, his sunken eyes dancing with warmth. “You did it, Andy.” In a rush of affection, he bent over Anden, seized the top of his hair and kissed him on the brow. “You sent the Mountain running. You saved the clan, cousin. And my life; I’ll never forget about that.”
“How did we …” Anden swallowed, trying to moisten his mouth. He saw his eyeglasses on the table next to him and put them on shakily. “How are we alive? What happened after …?” It was difficult to form complete sentences.
Hilo laughed. He got up and filled a paper cup with water from the sink. They were in a private hospital room, Anden realized. Hilo moved gingerly, with little of his usual languid grace, as if he’d been taken apart and put back together and wasn’t sure if all the pieces were accounted for yet. He sat back down and placed the water in Anden’s hand, closing his cousin’s fingers around the cup as if guiding an uncoordinated child. Unsteadily, Anden raised it to his lips and drank, grateful and embarrassed to have the Pillar of the clan sitting here and treating him so gently.
“Mr. Une, the owner of the Twice Lucky, saw what happened and phoned the house. Shae called Kehn and Tar—they were waiting in a building just across the freeway in Junko, less than five minutes away.” Hilo paused to draw a breath, wincing at some unseen injury, but still smiling. “It’s all good news, Andy. After the Mountain lost its Horn and half a dozen of its other top Green Bones, Kehn and our Fists swept in like a fire. They took back the rest of the Docks in a day.” Hilo’s face was bright with pride. “After he and Shae saw us to the hospital, Tar won us the rest of Sogen. Juen and his men pushed into Spearpoint and killed so many of the Mountain Fingers there that we don’t have to worry anymore about losing Poor Man’s Road. We turned the war. You did.”
Anden tried to absorb this. “Does this mean Ayt’s been defeated?”
Hilo cocked his head. “Andy, a Green Bone’s not defeated until they’re dead. Didn’t the two of us just prove that?” He pressed his lips together. “The Mountain’s an old clan, a big clan. We’ve hit them bad and forced Ayt to pull back. She’ll have to name a new Horn—probably Gont’s First Fist; I’m told he’s still alive. It’ll be some time before they can come back at us again. But Ayt’s not finished.” There was grimness in Hilo’s voice but a dancing optimism in his eyes, something Anden hadn’t seen since before Lan’s death. “But neither are we, Andy,” he said, leaning in as if to share a secret. “You and me, we got Gont. We’ll get her next.”
Anden was confused; why was it so hard for him to feel happy right now? He was alive, Hilo was alive, Gont was dead, and No Peak had prevailed. He ought to be relieved, he ought to be in good spirits just as his cousin was. Instead he felt hollow and lacking, hungry not for victory or vengeance, but only for the awareness and power that had been so fleeting and transformative. Brief exposure to a large quantity of jade had carved his mind with indelible knowledge of what it was capable of. Everything else—family and clan included—paled in comparison.
“How … long have I been in here?” he asked.
“Five days,” Hilo said. At Anden’s look of alarm, he said, “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. I was dancing closer to the grave than you, and you’re younger and stronger than I am. Dr. Truw’s been in here constantly for both of us. We should make him our personal family doctor.”
Anden wasn’t sure he could put his thoughts into words, but he had to try. “Hilo … I don’t feel right. I feel strange, empty, like I don’t care about important things anymore. Killing Gont—I felt it all. It was the worst thing I’ve ever had to go through, but I want to do it again.” Anden’s voice cracked in distress. “There’s something wrong with me, isn’t there? Am I sick? Is it the Itches?”
“Don’t be silly,” Hilo said. He laid a compassionate hand on Anden’s shoulder and sighed. “Handling that much jade for the first time, under that kind of stress—it knocked you flat. You’re especially sensitive, no question of that. We’ve been giving you regular doses of SN1 to bring the fever down, reset your system. The doctor says your brain scans are normal now, so give it a few more days and you’ll feel like yourself again.” He gave Anden a pat. “Don’t worry, graduation is still a week away. You’ll be out of here by then for sure. Neither of us is missing that.”
Anden looked over at the IV stand, followed the clear tube to where it was taped to the inside of his arm. “I’m being doped with shine?” The poison that had killed Lan, dripping into his veins.
“Don’t look so worried,” Hilo said quickly. He flicked the hanging tube with a finger. “It’s entirely controlled; there’s no risk. Dr. Truw’s been monitoring you the whole time. You’ll be weaned to a low dose by the time you’re out of here, and the doctor says we can talk about whether to keep you on it or try taking you off. He doesn’t suggest going off it yet since you’ll be getting your graduation jade soon. Better for your body to have that safety cushion for now. It’ll help you.”
Anden felt overcome with exhaustion. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, his chest tight, the nonspecific desire to weep still building inside him yet unable to find release, mixing instead with the confused craving and the drug crawling through his veins.
“Just rest for now, Andy,” Hilo said gently, and didn’t say anything else after that. His hand still rested on Anden’s shoulder, and through the physical contact, Anden felt the familiar thrum of his cousin’s jade aura, faint and muted, either by Anden’s own dulled senses or because Hilo had not recovered enough to be wearing all his jade. All that jade Anden had held—it belonged to Hilo, who had so much he didn’t even feel anything when he got new pieces. Anden lay still, but resentment and envy coursed through him like an infection taking hold.
CHAPTER
56
Graduation Day
In years to come, the city would recall the holiday week that came to pass as the New Year’s bloodletting of the Janloon clans. Many referred to it as the vengeance of the Kauls. In some parts of the city it was nodded at approvingly, in others it elicited the nervous tugging of earlobes. What was apparent by the time the districts settled into a new stalemate was that neither clan would be enjoying a swift victory. Despite all doubts to the contrary, the youngest grandchildren of the Torch had fended off annexation, and in so doing, solidified unquestioned clan leadership.
It was tradition for the graduating year-eights of Kaul Dushuron Academy, who finished their Trials before the holidays but had to wait until the auspicious start of the year for final results and graduation, to spend the first week after the break performing back-breaking service on the campus grounds—a final lesson in the Divine Virtue of humility—before being allowed to take their oaths and receive their jade. Anden was still recovering in the hospital and not able to join his classmates in scrubbing paving stones, repairing fences, pruning trees, and guiding clueless year-ones from place to place. True to Hilo’s prediction, however, he was out of Janloon General Hospital two days before graduation, and well enough to attend convocation on an overcast spring day, gray with the threat of rain.
Word had spread that Anden had been the only one with the Pillar at the battle that had killed Gont Asch. When he arrived in formal Academy robes to line up in the Gathering Hall before the ceremonies, a deep hush preceded him wherever he walked. At the check-in table, Master Sain inclined his head with more respect than Anden had ever received from an instructor. “Emery. Stand at the end of the line. You’ll be the last to enter.” Anden knew that to mean he’d received the highest marks in the Trials, which, combined with First of Class standing in the Pre-Trials, had compensated for his only slightly better than average academic scores to place him Rank One.
Anden saluted and retreated to the end of the forming line. “Ton,” he said in greeting. Ton startled before raising his hands in a salute. “Anden-jen,” he said. “I’m glad to see you’re well.” There was a formality in Ton’s voice, the tone of a Finger addressing a Fist, and Anden stopped, uncertain of how to respond. He wanted to correct Ton for addressing him as a Green Bone even before the graduation ceremony, but it was clear from the other teen’s manner that he’d done it deliberately. Anden swallowed his growing discomfort and turned to nod hello to Dudo and Pau; both of them dipped into salutes.
Anden’s gaze drifted behind them to Lott. A fleeting emotion, the dim shadow of an ache, passed through Anden’s center, but that was all; he didn’t have room for anything else. That part of him felt numb. Lott, who ever since his father’s violent death, had a grim, hollow-eyed look about him, inclined his head toward Anden civilly. “Jen.”
Anden turned and faced the front of the line, closing his hands within the long sleeves of his formal black robes. Two weeks of convalescence, healing sessions with Dr. Truw, and administered SN1 had done what Hilo had promised it would: Anden felt physically recovered, and more like himself than he’d been when he’d awoken in the hospital, distraught and parched with jade craving. Even so, it had been a mental struggle to work himself up to the event today, to prepare himself to stand before the staring eyes of not just his fellow students, but the entire clan.
“You’re a hero, Andy,” Hilo had said, but Anden didn’t feel like a hero. He felt damaged and unsure of himself. He thought of the SN1 still circulating like a pollutant through his bloodstream. These people knew what he’d done but didn’t see what he’d become: a danger. A volatile substance, held stable with the aid of dubious modern science.
At the sounding of the drums outside, the one hundred and twenty-six men and thirty-two women who’d completed the full eight years of Green Bone training at Kaul Du Academy shuffled out of the Gathering Hall and into the main courtyard, filing neatly into rows in front of the low stage that had been set up facing the hundreds of folding chairs containing watching relatives and clan members.
Anden knelt on the pavers with his classmates under the tent that had been erected to shield against the threat of rain. As Grandmaster Le began speaking, Anden looked over his shoulder into the rows of spectators. He found the Kauls at once, sitting front and center. Hilo was in a sharp olive suit and black vest he’d bought just for the occasion; he looked much better, his face still scarred but no longer gaunt. He was clearly in good spirits, as he’d been on the car ride over, exuding the cheerful nonchalance that had almost disappeared from him in recent months. He had one arm curled around Wen’s shoulders. Anden saw him tug her affectionately to the side of his body and pull the hood of her jacket over her head to cut the slight but damp wind. On Hilo’s other side was Maik Kehn, and next to Wen was the Weather Man. Shae sat erect, in a dark skirt and blouse, her gaze serious and slightly preoccupied, but when she noticed Anden watching, she gave him a small smile.
He brought his attention back to the front as Grandmaster Le called forward the first group of students. All year-eights were required to declare their intended allegiances prior to final Trials, and these eleven graduates had elected to take penitent’s oaths. A Learned One from the Temple of Divine Return mounted the few steps onto the platform to administer the oath of penitence. The eleven students stood and approached the stage; they knelt at the front of the assembly and recited the lines binding them to a life of religious service, then touched their heads to the ground before rising and walking behind their classmates. The next twenty-five students had committed their jade abilities to the healing arts; they were called forward to take oaths before a master physician of the College of Bioenergetic Medicine, where they would continue their training. Anden shifted, his legs numb, as a third group of eighteen graduates was called up before Grandmaster Le himself to pledge themselves to the honorable profession of teaching the jade disciplines. They would return to the Academy as assistant teachers the following week, with the hope of one day becoming masters.
At last, the remainder of the class, the large group who’d declared service and loyalty to the No Peak clan, came forward en masse to take their oaths. A ripple went through the spectators and graduates alike as the Pillar of the clan strode down the center aisle and mounted the stage with quick steps. Hilo turned and looked out across the crowd. Anden thought he looked pleased. Roughly a hundred new Green Bones for the clan, nearly two-thirds of the graduating class. Some would become Luckbringers, but a majority would start as Fingers, for Kehn and his Fists to command.
Everyone waited for Hilo to begin speaking the jade warrior’s oaths line by line, so the gathered graduates could repeat after him. Instead, for a long time he said nothing while an uncomfortable pause lengthened. People began glancing at one another in confusion. Grandmaster Le cleared his throat impatiently, but Hilo shook his head. “Grandmaster,” he said, smiling, and speaking loudly enough that the crowd could hear him, “I didn’t appreciate this place enough when I was standing down there in those black robes, so let me take in this beautiful sight for a minute. I’m not a student anymore, so you can’t even wallop me for holding you up.” The crowd chuckled at this. He’s truly the Pillar now, and everyone knows it, Anden thought. And still himself, mostly.
“Brothers and sisters,” Hilo shouted. “The Pillar is the master of the clan, but Pillars change, and still the brotherhood survives and continues. You’re taking this oath as much to one another as you are to me. So who knows the Green Bone warrior’s oaths by heart and can lead his classmates in taking them first?”
This was not how the ceremony was supposed to go, but even Grandmaster Le didn’t try to intercede when Lott stepped forward from the line. “I will, Kaul-jen.”
Hilo nodded and motioned the teen onto the stage. Anden watched, his heart beating in his throat, as Lott walked calmly up the three steps and knelt before Hilo, who leaned in to whisper something briefly into his ear before step
ping back. Anden caught a glimpse of Lott’s bleak and determined expression as he raised his clasped hands to his forehead. “The clan is my blood, and the Pillar is its master,” he began in a strong voice that carried clearly across the courtyard. And the voices of a hundred of his classmates rose up and echoed him: The clan is my blood, and the Pillar is its master!
As his lips moved, reciting the oath he’d already taken two weeks ago, Anden couldn’t tear his eyes from the sight of Lott kneeling up there in front of everyone, hands raised and eyes lowered before Hilo’s warm but penetrating gaze. A bewildered grief rose in Anden. He was certain this was never what Lott had wanted; he’d never wanted to follow in his father’s bloody footsteps. It ought to be him, Anden, up there instead. The Kauls were his family; he’d already proven himself worthy of jade, and everyone was acknowledging him as Hilo’s protégé and a fearsome new force in the clan. And yet, he was stricken for Lott, and horribly, incomprehensibly grateful not to be on the stage, because it seemed, for a long, surreal moment, that Lott was him, that he’d taken Anden’s place as he’d appeared when kneeling on the wooden floor of the training hall of the Kaul estate after New Year’s dinner, and now Anden was looking at himself through someone else’s eyes, seeing blood and jade and tragedy.
“On my honor, my life, and my jade,” Lott finished, and touched his head to the ground. The other new Green Bones of No Peak repeated his words, closing the oath. As he had with Anden, Hilo drew Lott to his feet, embraced him, and with one hand on his shoulder, said something to him in a low voice that Anden couldn’t hear. Lott gave a short, tight nod, then stepped off the stage to take his place back in the line. Hilo clasped his hands in sharp salute and raised his voice, addressing the new members of the clan. “I accept your oaths and call you my brothers-in-arms.”