Ayt Mada’s hand latched around the girl’s throat in a grip of crushing Strength. With an almost inhuman cry, she spun and smashed the back of the young woman’s head into the edge of the heavy table with so much force that the thick, polished black wood cracked along with the girl’s skull. Blazing with explosive jade energy, Ayt hurled the limp body into the nearest window. It hit the glass with a sickening, meaty thud, creating a spiderweb’s pattern of cracks before dropping like a heavy sack to the carpet.
From the corners of the room, the watching penitents raised their faces upward and chanted in unison, “Heaven has seen! Heaven has seen! Heaven has seen!” in a chilling chorus that made everyone in the room quail, tugging on earlobes with the horrible knowledge that Ven Ema had eternally damned her soul and the souls of her entire family for spilling blood in sight of the gods.
Ayt fell to her knees, her hands clamped around the wound in her neck, red streams pouring between her fingers around the protruding blade. Koben Yiro lurched to his feet in panic. “Ayt-jen!” He ran toward her, then stopped and spun around to face the stunned, staring faces of all the people in the room. “The Pillar’s been wounded. Get help!”
The Weather Man of Six Hands Unity took half a dozen steps toward the hall before coming to a hesitant halt. Hilo was standing in front of the closed door. He had not moved; he was as shocked as anyone else by the sight of Ayt Mada on her knees, fatally wounded, her eyes wide with disbelief and pain. Ayt’s mouth worked for air. Blood continued to seep out from under her tightly clamped hand, spreading a rich stain down her cream-colored cardigan. Hilo stared at her, then slowly raised his eyes to the others in the room, sweeping a coolly assessing gaze over the meeting’s attendees. Without a word, he took two deliberate steps to block the exit.
A chilling realization fell across everyone assembled. If they did nothing, Ayt Mada would die. Hilo did not have to lift a finger to make it happen; he simply had to prevent anyone from leaving. Several of the people in the room did not wear jade. Among the other Green Bones present, none were as heavily jaded as Kaul Hilo or would individually be a match for him in martial ability. A few of them together could overcome him, but they were unlikely to be able to do so quickly. Woon was out in the hallway and could be at Hilo’s side in an instant.
The Pillar of the Stone Cup clan sat back down in his chair and folded his arms, making it clear that he would not move against No Peak. The leaders of the Jo Sun clan and the Black Tail clan followed suit. The Mountain’s tributary clan leaders looked to each uncertainly. They had all sworn oaths of allegiance to Ayt Mada, but with the woman bleeding out on the ground and Kaul Hilo standing in their way, was it worth risking their own lives to save her?
Koben Yiro took a threatening step toward Hilo, bellowing, “Someone do something, before it’s too late!”
Hilo settled his predatory gaze on the man. “It’s already too late, Koben-jen,” he said in a dangerous whisper. “Out with the old, in with the new.”
Koben Yiro swallowed. If Ayt Mada died, he would be personally saddled with the shame of having failed his Pillar. On the other hand, his nephew was the heir. His family would rise to lead the Mountain.
Three heartbeats of morbid stalemate blanketed the room. Ayt tried to speak, but although she opened her mouth, no words emerged. Hilo saw the realization dawning on her bloodless face. She was dying, surrounded by people, and none of them would help her, not even those allies who had pledged her their loyalty. Kaul Hiloshudon would stand in front of the door, triumphant, doing nothing, watching her die, and everyone else in the room would stand by quietly and do the same. She had been the strongest of them all, the most cunning, the most feared, but she was without true friends in this room. Hilo saw this horrible understanding in her eyes, and as eager as he was for Ayt to die, in that instant, he felt pity for her, too.
Rage and defiance lit Ayt Mada’s jade aura, roiling it like magma. With a burst of superhuman effort, she pushed herself to her feet and ran—not for the door where Hilo stood in her way, but toward the window. She leapt Light over the body of Ven Ema and threw herself at the damaged glass, hitting it with her shoulder, shattering it with all her Strength.
With a snarl of disbelief, Hilo ran forward to see Ayt tumble three stories to the sidewalk below. Injured as she was, she managed to cling to her grip on Lightness and Steel. She crashed off the top of a parked van, denting the metal roof, rolled off, and landed on the concrete amid a shower of glass shards, eliciting shocked shouts and screams from people nearby. Ayt rose, staggered and fell, rose again, and began to run, stumbling, down the street.