Hilo used a napkin to blot up the tea soaking into their clothes. “You’re tired.” He stood and drew Wen to her feet. She leaned against him as they made their way back to the house. For the moment, no one was paying attention to them. Nearly all the guests had migrated to the lawn to wait for the display of fireworks that would soon go off over the city. Once inside, Hilo helped her up the stairs and into bed. His hands were gentle but empty of affection or lust as he unbuttoned her elaborate gown and removed it before tucking her under the blankets.
Tears of regret and humiliation stung the back of Wen’s eyes. Years ago, when they were young lovers, she used to spend the entire day in feverish anticipation of Hilo’s arrival. He would come to her at last, a young Fist burning bright with the high of new jade taken in some skirmish or duel. She would make him recount his victories as she undressed him, pressing her mouth to the gems freshly studded into his body. They would have mind-blowing sex, over and over again. How exhilarating it had been, the erotic power she’d possessed over him.
Hilo never brought up the fact that he now occasionally used charm girls, but he made no effort to hide it either. She’d smelled perfume on his clothes a few times, had found matchbooks and mint wrappers from the Lilac Divine Gentleman’s Club in his pockets. She could accept that he paid to have his needs met elsewhere during her long recuperation, but it was too painful to imagine, as she did now, that they’d lost the ability to find solace in each other. On the occasions they attempted lovemaking, Hilo was not himself, either handling her with extreme care, as if afraid of damaging her, or else copulating brusquely, as if engaged in an angry chore.
Hilo turned off the bedside lamp and sat down on the edge of the mattress, staring out the window at the city skyline as the first fireworks exploded high over the roofline of Wisdom Hall and the tiered conical tower of the Triumphal Palace. The flashes of light briefly illuminated his darkened profile, sharpened the pensive lines that did not fit on the face she’d fallen in love with. Outside, the drums boomed and the people at the party cheered the arrival of the New Year.
When Wen was seventeen years old, she’d sharpened a kitchen knife and slashed the tires on her brother’s bicycle. She never told Kehn, who gave one of the neighbor boys a beating over it. After that, Kaul Hilo came around their house in his car every day to pick up Kehn and Tar when the three of them went around town together, junior Fingers fresh out of the Academy, hungry to win jade and earn their reputations. Every day, Wen walked out to the Duchesse to bid her brothers goodbye and to welcome them home. Hilo once laughed as he pulled up to see her standing in the rain. He said she was the kindest and most devoted sister he’d ever met, that his own sister would never do such a thing.
Wen had to admit with some chagrin that she had been a lovesick teenage girl, but she hadn’t simply pined uselessly. A small thing like a ruined bicycle could change fate, just as a stone-eye could tip the scales in a clan war. She searched now for the one thing she could say that would make Hilo turn toward her, the way he used to when he rolled down the window and leaned across the seat with a grin. But she was too weary.
“I have to go back out there,” Hilo said. Wen turned onto her side. She felt the pressure of him lift off the mattress, and when the next burst of light from the fireworks struck the room, it lit empty space.
CHAPTER
6
Shifting Winds
A special shareholder meeting of the Kekon Jade Alliance was convened six days later. After much political outrage and tense military posturing on all sides, the diplomatic crisis between Espenia and Ygutan had not escalated into all-out war, but in Janloon and other cities across Kekon, there had been panicked runs on groceries and basic supplies at a time that would normally be a period of rest and celebration. The Green Bone clans had been out in force preventing crime and looting in their own districts, but that was a short-term concern. The Kekonese people were contemplating the possibility of foreign invasion for the first time since the Many Nations War. Even clan leaders that hated each other knew they needed to meet.
Shae went over to the main house early that morning and found the children watching cartoons while Kyanla cleaned up after breakfast. “Auntie Shae, we’re watching Beast Taming Warriors,” Ru informed her, pulling her toward the sofa. An animated show about Green Bone royal guards of a fictitious pseudo Three Crowns–era dynasty, who not only had fantastically overpowered jade abilities but who could summon and ride enormous magical beasts into battle. A number of action figures of the show’s characters were scattered on the carpet in front of the television.