Jade War

CHAPTER 31 Stand Your Ground

The duel was set for the following morning, as it would be uncouth to spill blood on a national holiday and detract from the planned Heroes Day festivities. The combatants would meet in Juro Wood, halfway between the Ayt and Kaul residences. Shae knew that she ought to go to bed early, but the idea of sleep seemed impossible considering this might be her last night alive. Around midnight, with the popping of the parade fireworks still sounding intermittently over the city, she crept into the prayer room of the main house and knelt on the stiff cushion in front of the small shrine. The dark certainty, the sense of cold purpose she’d felt earlier was nowhere to be found. All she felt now was nauseating fear and dread.

Shae was a heavily jaded and skilled Green Bone who had graduated at the top of her class at Kaul Dushuron Academy. Now she spent most of her days behind a desk or in meetings. She maintained a routine of daily morning practice and semiregular private coaching sessions, but unlike Hilo, she had not been training diligently to keep her martial abilities at a peak. If she’d had any inkling she would be in this situation, she would’ve booked Master Aido solid for the past six months. Ayt Madashi wore more jade and had killed more men in single combat than any woman Green Bone in recent history. Years had passed since her violent ascension to Pillar; perhaps Ayt had gotten lax as well. Shae hoped that was the case but was not optimistic.

She bent her head. “Old Uncle in Heaven, judge me the greener of your kin tomorrow, if it be so,” she murmured in prayer to Jenshu the Monk, the One Who Returned, the patron god of Green Bones. She paused. “And if you judge otherwise, at least give me credit for a dramatic attempt.”

The genuine surprise on Ayt’s face that afternoon had given her one pure moment of satisfaction. If the Pillar of the Mountain had considered the possibility of Shae challenging her with a clean blade, she must’ve dismissed the idea. Her target was a young woman in an office—not a testosterone-driven and jade-hungry male Fist. Not someone eager to die.

Two seconds of mutual disbelief had hung between the two women, and then Ayt’s jade aura had swelled ominously as she leveled a stare at Shae that seemed to vanish the presence of all the stunned people watching them. Ayt put down the papers of her speech. In the unnatural silence, the microphone magnified the rustle of the pages. The Pillar of the Mountain stepped out from behind the podium and said, in a clear, firm voice that needed no amplification, “I accept.”

After he’d gotten over the initial shock of what she’d done, Hilo had been, unsurprisingly, furious. Not even the Pillar could reverse a challenge between two willing parties once it was issued and accepted, but from the explosive roar of his jade aura Shae thought Hilo might try to kill her himself before Ayt got around to it. In the Duchesse after escaping the ensuing hubbub, he’d struggled to find words. “What the fuck, Shae?” he shouted.

“It’s the only way,” Shae whispered, numbed by what she’d done. The only way to quash the scandal, to erase all doubts, to silence Ayt Mada and anyone who accused her of being too Espenian, overly influenced by foreigners, a naive woman who was not trustworthy. It didn’t matter if Hilo kept her in the role or not; after Ayt’s damaging accusations, she would never again be taken seriously as Weather Man unless she answered the critics unequivocally.

“Stop this stupidity while you still can,” Hilo had ordered. “Take back the offer of a clean blade. You’re green enough, sure, greener than most men, but you can’t expect to beat Ayt Mada, not unless you have some trick you’re not telling me about, or you’ve been secretly training at night all year.” From Shae’s silence, he deduced this was not the case and exploded again. “Are you trying to get yourself killed, then? Aren’t you supposed to be the smart one?”

In truth, Shae had felt a terrified urge to retract the offer as soon as it left her mouth, but the familiarity of Hilo’s temper jolted her back into the state of inescapable logic that she’d summoned earlier. Reneging on the challenge would destroy whatever standing she had left and irreparably shame No Peak. Hilo, who’d fought many duels in his life, knew this, so the fact that he’d even suggested it was oddly touching. “It’s done, Hilo,” she said. “I can’t back out.”

“She’s right,” Kehn said from the driver’s seat. “Ayt’s the one who caused offense. Also, no one in No Peak has actually seen the bitch fight. Shae-jen has as good a chance as anyone.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Hilo snarled at his Horn, something Shae had never seen before. “Ayt’s always searching for ways to get at us. Now she has a clean blade and the chance to cut off my little sister’s head with everyone watching. She’s got to be fucking ecstatic!”

Shae had to admit there was a painful irony to the situation. Four years ago, she’d been ambivalent about even returning to Janloon; now she was sacrificing a relationship, a pregnancy, and most likely her own life to defend her position and reputation as Weather Man of No Peak. She was not usually the bold and reckless one—that had always been Hilo’s role in the family.

How things change. Then again, all the actions Ayt Mada had publicized as evidence of her weak character—dating a foreigner, working for the Espenians, taking off her jade, and leaving the clan to be educated abroad—had been rebellious declarations, attempts to prove herself equal or better than her brothers. She wanted what she was told by others she couldn’t have, was willing to dramatically self-immolate rather than accept terms forced upon her. So no, some things had not changed after all.

The door to the prayer room slid open and Hilo came in. Shae did not get up or turn around to face her brother, but to her surprise, he knelt beside her and touched his head to the ground the customary three times. She had never even seen him come into this room before.

“I didn’t think you believed in the gods,” she said when he straightened.

“I don’t,” Hilo said, “but the feeling’s mutual, so maybe they won’t hold it against me.” His jade aura was still humming at a higher pitch than usual, but he was calmer than he had been. Perhaps Wen had talked to him; she always seemed able to smooth her husband’s thoughts. Shae could hear her sister-in-law’s footsteps upstairs, pacing with Ru to settle him down, and she could Perceive Niko’s soft energy, asleep. She thought about how she might not live to see either of her nephews grow up, and an ache bloomed in her chest.

Hilo muttered, “If this is supposed to be peace, I think I prefer war.”

Shae glanced at him. “Ayt had us in a bind, and she knew it. Whether I resigned or not, No Peak would be damaged. We would be seen as weaker than the Mountain. Tearing me down would’ve been only the start.” She faced the shrine again, chin raised. “No matter what happens tomorrow, we’ll have taken that leverage away from her.”

“As if that’ll do us much good if you’re dead.” Hilo turned to her with a ferocious glare. “You didn’t listen to me; you never do. You did your own crazy thing as usual. So now you have to go through with it and win.” He seized her upper arm in a painful grip and forced her to meet his eyes. “It’s true what Kehn said. You have a chance to put Ayt Mada in the ground. We both know that anything can happen in a fight, and a duel is fought in here”—he tapped the center of her forehead with a forefinger—“before blades are drawn. So tell me you’ll do it, Shae. You’ll cut off Ayt’s fucking head and put an end to all this.”

Shae felt her bones prickling from the insistent pressure of her brother’s aura. She forced a swallow out of her shrunken throat. “I’ll do it,” she said, her voice muted but steady. “I’ll win tomorrow.”

Hilo released her and stood up, his fierce expression unchanged. “Then stop sitting in here pretending to talk to the gods. Go to bed and get enough rest. Or else get your moon blade and practice, put your mind in the right place.” He opened the door. “I’ll be in the training hall.”

In the morning, Shae rose and dressed in comfortable pants, fitted nylon top, traditional leather vest, and soft-soled shoes. She tied her hair back and examined herself in the mirror, debating how much of her jade to wear. Combatants hoping for every modicum of advantage wore all their jade into a duel, but that meant losing it all if one was defeated. Green Bones who were heavily jaded and thus gained little additional martial benefit from carrying their entire arsenal might be advised to think of their jade more prudently, as family wealth that they’d rather see passed on to family members instead of adorning the body of an enemy. Notwithstanding the promise of victory she’d made to Hilo in the prayer room last night, it was in Shae’s nature to be realistic about her chances. After a long moment of consideration, she removed her earrings and bracelets, leaving in place her anklets and two-tier choker.

She selected her best moon blade—twenty-nine and a half inches in length, with a slightly curved twenty-and-a-half-inch single-edged blade of the finest tempered Da Tanori steel and a hilt stippled with small jade stones. She was not remotely hungry, but she cracked an egg into hot porridge and forced herself to eat. She looked around at her surroundings, thinking that the house was nice and Wen had decorated it well—hardwood flooring and dark furniture with clean lines contrasted with the soft throw pillows, light walls, and creamy drapes.

The place was too large for one person, though. Shae thought of Maro, of all the ignored messages now filling up the tape in her answering machine, and her throat closed, making it impossible to finish the last bites of her breakfast. Guilt and regret swelled and settled below her gut like bloat. She ached, more desperately than she’d expected, to see Maro’s face, to hear his voice, to seize the chance to tell him that she did in fact love him. She knew that at last, when it was too late. She wished she’d thought of writing him a letter, but there was no time to do so properly, and speaking to him now would be of no good to either of them; she didn’t think she could explain herself, and Maro—idealistic, rational, argumentative Maro with his two jade studs and skepticism of clan culture—he would not understand. Maro had never dueled, had walked away rather than spill blood or risk his life to satisfy traditional notions of Green Bone honor. He’d tell her to do the same.

She washed and dried her single bowl and spoon, put them away, and turned off all the house lights. Then she walked outside to where Hilo and the Maiks waited by the Duchesse.

The drive was quiet. The darkness under Hilo’s eyes suggested that he had not slept any more than Shae had the previous night. He did not speak, and the Maik brothers, taking their cues from him, didn’t either. The morning after a holiday, traffic was light, and it didn’t take long to get to the Garrison House & Gardens in Juro Wood. Shae suspected that Ayt Mada had chosen the location for the symbolism. The Garrison House was a colonial mansion of red tiles and white colonnades; the residence of the Shotarian governor during the occupation period, it had been spared from destruction and turned into a national historic landmark containing a museum and public gardens. Shae and Ayt would be facing each other on the lawn, with the country’s most visible symbol of past foreign domination looming in the backdrop.

Creeping warmth in the air promised a hot day to come, but the sky was thick with clouds and a layer of summer smog hung low over the city, creating a diffuse, sunless gloom. As the Duchesse pulled up to the curb in front of the public gardens, Shae saw an enormous crowd bordering the lawn. Some people carried cameras and others had spread blankets on the ground. For a second, Shae thought they had interrupted some public event and would have to move the location of the duel. Then it dawned on her that the duel was the public event. Of course, dueling was not uncommon—but this was not a common duel. News of Shae’s challenge had created a storm of overnight attention. Clean blades between the Pillar and the Weather Man of the two largest clans in the country was dramatic enough, but moreover, there had never been a duel between two women of such high rank in their respective clans. Only in the postwar generation, with the country’s population of male Green Bones depleted, had it become more commonplace for girls to be trained to wear jade. These days, one in five graduates from the nation’s martial schools were female, but most men still scorned to duel a woman, and duels between women, even Fists, were often smirked at as something of a joke.

This contest would not be a joke. Shae and Ayt Mada would be making history, no matter the outcome. Social progress, Kekonese-style, Shae mused. Equal opportunity to die by the blade.

She closed her eyes for a minute before getting out of the car. Even when the mind is determined, the body objects vehemently to the possibility of injury and death. Shae’s hands had gone clammy, and there was a tightness in her chest that she tried to alleviate with controlled breaths. She wondered if her thudding pulse was as Perceivable to every nearby Green Bone as it was to her. It occurred to her that her classmates from Belforte Business School in Windton would be horrified and flabbergasted by what she was about to do. Oddly, the thought made her smile.

Tar got out and opened the back door for her and Hilo; the spectators edged forward eagerly but kept a respectful distance from the intimidating presence of No Peak’s leaders as they stepped out onto the lawn. Seconds after their arrival, a long, sleek, silver Stravaconi Monarch pulled up behind the Duchesse. Ayt Mada emerged, along with her Horn and two Fists. Ayt appeared unruffled by the presence of the crowd; she nodded casually toward the Mountain loyalists who called out and saluted her. She was wearing a black tank top and comfortable silk pants with a tied drawstring. Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. A pair of sunglasses perched on top of her head. As she walked to the center of the lawn, she removed them and handed them to Nau Suen, who tucked them into the breast pocket of his shirt as if he regularly held on to the Pillar’s sunglasses during duels. Ayt looked as if she were stopping by the event in between running Sixthday errands, except for the fact that she was carrying her thirty-two-inch jade-hilted moon blade slung over one shoulder. All of her jade sat in its usual place, coiled in silver bracelets up both her arms.

The time had come. Shae drew her moon blade and held it out to Hilo. Her brother turned his head to stare across the lawn at Ayt and her people. He turned back slowly, looked down at Shae’s blade, and spat on the white metal for luck. Shae opened her mouth to say something—she was not even sure what—but Hilo dropped his hands onto her shoulders. His grip and aura fell on her like a warm lead vest. Leaning close, he brought his cheek next to hers and whispered into her ear. “Four cars full of our Fists and Fingers are on their way here, to block off the Lo Low Street tunnel and every road out of this place. There are others headed to the Ayt mansion, to the Factory, to half a dozen other Mountain properties in the city.” His voice was soft and chillingly devoid of inflection. “Some blades can’t be cleaned.”

The iciness of Hilo’s words ran down Shae’s back in a wave of abrupt understanding. Unlike her, he had not been awake all night worrying or praying; he’d been making military preparations. If Shae fell under Ayt’s sword, Hilo would not allow their enemies to leave the grounds alive. He would break the immutable law of the clean blade; he would take forbidden vengeance on her killer and plunge the clans, and the entire city, back into all-out war.

Shae was horrified. She was risking her life to clear her name and her clan’s reputation by solving a dispute of personal honor in the old way, the Green Bone way, under the eyes of Old Uncle and in adherence to rules that all Kekonese held as inviolable stricture. Duels were traditionally meant to contain personal feuds and prevent them from escalating into family or clan vendettas. Breaking the pact of the clean blade would be unacceptable; it would put all the fault for the resumption of war squarely on No Peak. Hilo was a Green Bone to his core and the Pillar of the clan; for him to so flagrantly break the moral code they lived by—it would ruin everything. It would make a mockery of the jade warrior honor she was dueling to uphold in the first place.

Before Shae could put any of these thoughts into words, Hilo stepped away from her, his expression dark and unreadable. He turned and walked to the corner where the Maik brothers waited, and Shae was alone in the center of the lawn, save for the impatient red intensity of Ayt Mada, standing across from her, moon blade already drawn, waiting to begin.

Shae scrambled to regain her focus. She wondered for an instant if Hilo was bluffing—if this was his twisted way of motivating her to survive the duel—but she had no time to dwell on the idea. An anticipatory hush had fallen over the crowd; she heard the clicking of camera shutters around her. Innumerable heartbeats were rising in her Perception, loud and seemingly in time with her own, all of them eager and waiting. Standing out from the general multitude were the jade auras of Green Bones from both clans who’d gathered to witness this event, one that was supposedly a matter of personal honor between two people, but that everyone knew was far more than that. Janlooners wanted the clans to hold to the truce, to respect territorial lines and cooperate to combat crime and smuggling and current international pressures, but they had nevertheless come out enthusiastically at a moment’s notice to see blood spilled between the Mountain and No Peak.

Shae faced her opponent and touched the flat of her blade to her forehead in salute. Ayt did the same. Gone was Ayt’s casual demeanor. There was a frightening quality to her stillness now, an almost reptilian poise in the way she stood erect and regarded the younger woman, waiting for her to attack first. In Shae’s acutely sharp Perception, Ayt was a column of red energy, the inside of a coal furnace, its painful heat blotting out everything else. The longer she stared at it in her mind, the more unassailable it would seem; she would lose her nerve. Shae gathered her Strength and rushed in with a burst of speed, moon blade flashing downward in an opening diagonal cross slash aimed at opening Ayt Mada’s torso from left shoulder to opposing hip.

Ayt slid left at the edge of the weapon’s reach, deftly deflected Shae’s next cut, and spun low to the ground, hair whipping around her neck, her extended blade a blur of steel. Shae launched herself Light, barely evading being taken apart at the knees, and came down with a hard chop from above. Ayt braced the blunt backside of her weapon against her left palm as she blocked Shae’s attack head-on. For an instant, white metal rang against white metal, Strength clashed against Strength, the jade auras of the two women vibrated with impact; then Ayt’s blade disengaged, changed direction like the darting tail of a fish, and shot a deadly path to Shae’s throat.

Shae jerked her head out of the way and threw her Steeled arm up in instinctive defense; Ayt’s moon blade sheared against her raised forearm, the razor edge parting skin but stopping short of muscle and bone. With her attention on Ayt’s weapon as it passed inches from her face, Shae nearly failed to Perceive the Channeling blow that Ayt thrust with her left hand. It drove toward Shae’s center like a sharpened metal rod, aiming to punch through heart and lungs.

Shae twisted her torso out of the way, battening herself with Steel, her rib cage shuddering with concentrated jade energy as she sucked in the deadly momentum of Ayt’s energy and countered in blind desperation: a quick, jabbing Channeling strike to the sternum, followed by an unaimed Deflection that nevertheless blasted her opponent in the midsection. Ayt stumbled backward several feet, lips parted in a grimace. Shae saw the Pillar’s eyes widen and her normally perfect composure fissure as the realization struck them both at the same time: Shae stood a chance of winning. In the opening seconds of the duel, anyone could see that Ayt Mada was a superlative jade fighter, a powerful, deliberate combatant, well deserving of her reputation, but Shae was fast and talented and perhaps most importantly, a dozen years younger, a Green Bone in her physical prime.

A moment of emotional stalemate seemed to pass between them. Then Ayt’s jade aura lit with the violence of an exploding star, just as a surge of adrenaline and odd elation caught feverish hold of Shae’s brain. Ayt came at her with weapon upraised and lips curled back, and with a wild cry of effort, Shae flew Light at her, blade slicing across in a deadly horizontal blur.

It became difficult for anyone watching the contest to follow the movement of the opposing moon blades as the duelists sent them singing against each other, seeking open angles, striving with equal ferocity to connect metal with flesh. Spectators murmured in alarm and scrambled to the edge of the lawn to make more space for the fighters as they raged across the field. Shae’s reality telescoped to the desperate purity of the fight. Her conscious mind all but shut down; only Perception, training, and reflexes could possibly save her from the onslaught. She saw Ayt’s face contort in a snarl of impatience as she lashed out with a flurry of darting, unpredictable slashes meant to overwhelm and confuse her opponent’s sense of both sight and Perception. Cuts rained down on Shae’s arms and torso; her Steel trembled under the strain of constant flexing and her lungs heaved like bellows, scalded with exertion. She sensed rather than saw the impending killing blow—an upward thrust that would pierce the hollow of her throat. Instead of blocking with her own blade, she threw a tight Deflection, just enough to shift Ayt’s aim; the stab passed inches from her left cheek as her own blade lashed out for her enemy’s neck.

Ayt barely twisted away from the lethal maneuver; Shae pressed the attack with a quick upward slash, and a bloody gash opened across the side of Ayt’s head, bisecting her left ear and taking half of it clean off.

Shae heard the collective intake of breath from the watching crowd a split second before she Perceived her opponent’s pain and rage. A slashed ear was a minor injury compared to the killing blow Shae had intended, but there are few things in Kekonese culture more symbolic than a missing ear. Ayt touched the blood on the side of her face in disbelief. For a fraction of a second, Shae was equally astonished. Some part of her had not expected Ayt to be a mere mortal, a woman of flesh and blood like herself, someone who would bleed if cut, someone who could be killed—and then she snapped back to her senses. She was tiring rapidly and could not keep fighting like this much longer; these brief seconds while Ayt was unbalanced—she had to take immediate advantage of them, win while she had the chance.

Shae sidestepped and committed to the momentary opening, throwing her weight into a cleaving, decapitating strike. Far from still being distracted by her superficial injury, Ayt seemed to have been anticipating the move; she shifted her position and met the attack head-on, slamming her own blade into the path of Shae’s weapon with so much force that Shae felt the impact reverberate through her frame and clatter into her teeth. For an instant, they were both rooted in the concussion of the blow. Ayt’s roaring jade aura crashed over Shae like a tidal wave; the churn of their desperately grappling energies filled every bit of her Perception. Faster than a striking cobra, Ayt’s left hand shot out and seized Shae’s sword hand, crushing down on the meat of her thumb in a grip of extraordinary Strength. With a twist, she forced Shae’s weapon downward and vertical, and with Steeled forearm, knocked the blade out of her opponent’s weakened grip. It happened in less than a second: Shae’s moon blade went flying, and Ayt sliced across with her own weapon, snarling as she threw Strength into a disemboweling cut.

Shae Steeled for all her life was worth. It was not fast or hard enough; pain lanced across her abdomen like flame along a line of blasting powder. A sudden hot wetness flowed down the front of her pants as if her bladder had given out all at once. When she looked down, she saw blood running down her legs as if a waterfall faucet had opened up above her navel.

She felt faint; the reality of impending death emptied her mind. Time elongated and turned the world strangely still. In the periphery of her Perception, she sensed Ayt Mada’s murderous triumph descending along with the executioner’s swing of her blade. With every particle of remaining wherewithal left to her, Shae staggered backward and fell to her knees in the grass, arms wide. “Ayt-jen!” she cried out hoarsely, her head thrown back. “I concede!”

She closed her eyes; at any second, she would die. “I concede,” she declared again. She could barely recognize her own voice; it seemed to be coming from someone else. It was hard to think, to grasp words and string them together into a final effort, a thin, calculated lifeline. “You are the greater Green Bone warrior, truly a worthy daughter of the Spear of Kekon. My life and my jade are yours for the taking. If you’re merciful enough to spare me, it’ll be only so I can follow your example and continue contributing what little worth I have to the good of Kekon.”

A heartbeat passed. Another. The pain of the stomach wound was unbearable; she wanted to slump to the ground in the damp grass and curl feebly around her injury, but she held herself still. With her eyes closed, she Perceived Ayt’s flicker of hesitation; the blade paused in its descent. Less than ten meters away, Hilo’s jade aura roared like a monster in a pit, its reckless, savage intent unmistakable. Shae opened her eyes and looked into Ayt’s maddened face, the left side of it smeared with blood, and then past the other woman’s shoulder. Two large cars were blocking off the two-lane road up to the Garrison House & Gardens. Another two had pulled up along the curb behind Ayt’s silver Stravaconi. A dozen No Peak Fists were coming out of the vehicles. The watching civilians were looking fearfully from Ayt to Shae to Hilo, to the surrounding soldiers of both clans, whose hands had gone for the hilts of their weapons.

Despite the agony in her torso and the clamor of her own panicked heartbeat, Shae met her opponent’s eyes and saw the fearsome expression shift into bitter understanding as Ayt too Perceived the arrival of Hilo’s warriors, the sudden dangerous shift in the air. Even now, facing death, Shae was desperately playing what cards remained to her. With the attention of the entire country on them, she had fought bravely and well, in true Kekonese fashion defended her reputation and that of her clan, and ultimately conceded the duel to the better warrior. There had been a moment of opportunity for Ayt to take Shae’s life fairly in battle—but that moment was lost. Clean-bladed dueling was an honorable tradition; striking down an opponent who’d surrendered was not.

Killing Shae now, as she knelt injured and disarmed, would show the Pillar of the Mountain to be merciless and bloodthirsty, would publicly confirm that she was who Hilo had been reminding everyone she was—the woman who’d seized power by having her own brother murdered in his sleep. The sort of person who would behead a defeated opponent on her knees might do anything, might break aisho in other ways, might even harm a child. Ayt’s image as the patriotic warrior stateswoman, which she had been carefully cultivating for over two years as she rebuilt the reputation of her clan, would be ruined. And Hilo would seize the justification he needed—if he needed any at all—to turn the scene into a bloodbath.

Shae’s blood soaking into the dry dirt raised a pungent metallic smell that stung her nostrils. With shaking fingers, she fumbled for the clasp of her jade choker and broke it. The twin strings fell from her neck, sliding from her skin as easily as blood from a vein. She held it out to Ayt, her arms shaking even from the small effort. She could Perceive the uncertainty, the frantic calculation, behind the burning gaze the other woman fixed on her. Ayt was furiously debating whether to eliminate an enemy now or preserve the moral high ground, and she could not be certain whether Kaul Hilo would go so far as to break the pact of clean blades, not to mention the truce between the Mountain and No Peak, and send them all careening back into clan war. Ayt’s eyes narrowed. Shae’s mind rang with the crowded Perception of all the people watching and waiting with growing alarm and held breath.

Ayt lowered her blade. She reached out and seized Shae’s jade in her fist. When she spoke, she raised her voice so all those nearby could hear. “You’ve acted disgracefully in the past, Kaul Shaelinsan. Nevertheless, it would be a waste to kill a fellow Green Bone at a time when Kekon needs every one of us.” The Pillar of the Mountain wiped the length of both sides of her moon blade against the thigh of one silk pant leg. “My blade is clean.”

Noisy exclamations of relief and appreciation erupted from the sidelines. The collective fever pitch of tension from the auras of the waiting Green Bones settled back to a wary hum. Ayt leaned in, close enough to speak to Shae alone. Shae stared at her jade in Ayt’s grip with curious horror, as if it were a part of her own body—a severed hand, her heart, her entrails—that the other woman was holding between them. The left side of Ayt’s head was grisly where part of the ear was missing, but she paid it no heed. “I promised you before, you foolish girl, that you would live to see your clan in ruins,” Ayt whispered. “It would be dishonest for me to kill you until then.” She turned calmly and walked into the posse of congratulatory Mountain fighters.

The jade withdrawal and blood loss hit Shae simultaneously, like a typhoon ripping her violently off the face of the earth. Everything fractured and tilted away as her weakened body collapsed beneath her. Dimly, she was aware of a great deal of commotion: Hilo and the Maiks crouching over her, the family’s Green Bone physician, Dr. Truw, pressing down on her wound and Channeling into her, forcing tingling warmth into her shivering limbs. Other people speaking as if from a great distance: “Get her into the ambulance.” Shae inhaled the smell of the grass pressed under her cheek and let unconsciousness drag her away from it all.