Niko turned around to face his staring, silent family. With slow steps, he went to Hilo and knelt in front of him. “Uncle, I’ll never be as good a son as Ru. I’ve done things . . . inexcusable things. But I’ve come home again.”
Wen had not seen her eldest child since the family dinner the night after Ru’s graduation. The muffling grief that had encased her for the past week split open under a surge of feeling. Without thinking, her feet moved, carrying her to him with quick steps. When he looked up at her with those large, watchful eyes, her heart flew into her throat.
“Ma,” he said.
Wen drew her hand back and slapped Niko hard across the face. The sound of it rang out like a gunshot. Niko turned his face but didn’t flinch as the red mark of Wen’s palm rose on his cheek. Shae stared at Wen in shock and even Jaya made a noise of exclamation.
“Three years,” Wen exclaimed. “Three years with no visits, no phone calls or letters, nothing.” After his initial employment contract with GSI had ended ten months ago, no one in the family had heard from him. Who knew what he’d been doing all this time.
“I deserved that,” Niko mumbled. “I was thinking only of myself when I ran away. Ru tried to tell me, but I . . .” Niko’s face buckled with emotion and he didn’t finish. Composing himself with effort, he raised his eyes to Hilo, who stared down at his nephew, an unreadable mess of emotions raging across his expression. Niko clasped his hands together and brought them to his forehead in salute. “The clan is my blood, and the Pillar is its master. Will you forgive me and accept me as your son again?”
Without waiting for Hilo’s answer, Niko drew a talon knife from the sheath at his waist. Drawing a fortifying breath, he grasped the top of his left ear and sliced downward with the knife, cutting into the groove between his ear and skull.
Hilo’s hand shot out and seized Niko’s wrist. Their eyes locked over the knife. For a moment, neither man moved. Blood streamed down the side of Niko’s face, running down his neck and soaking the collar of his shirt. He was trembling with pain. Slowly, the Pillar loosened his nephew’s fingers from the hilt and took away the talon knife.
“You never stopped being my son.” Hilo closed a hand fiercely on a fistful of Niko’s hair and kissed his brow, then lifted his nephew’s scarf and pressed it against the damaged ear, holding it in place as a bloom of red spread across the white fabric. “We all make mistakes. Sometimes terrible mistakes we can barely live with. But we learn from them. And maybe . . .” His voice collapsed. “Maybe we can forgive each other.”
THIRD INTERLUDE
The Charge of Twenty
In the final year of the Many Nations War, the Empire of Shotar relied heavily on its control of the East Amaric Ocean, with the occupied island of Kekon being its most significant asset. For this reason, the Charge of Twenty, a famous event in Kekonese history that is rarely studied by outsiders, is considered by some experts to be a far more important turning point in the global conflict than it’s given credit for.
The One Mountain Society’s attack on the heavily fortified Shotarian military base near present-day Lukang was nearly a complete disaster. Shotarian spies provided early warning of the assault, so the element of surprise was lost. Instead, the advancing Green Bone warriors were met with heavy artillery and twice the number of expected defenders. Leaving a small force inside the base, the Shotarians sallied into the surrounding area with superior numbers, encircling the rebels’ position.
When Kaul Dushuron realized that he and his men were trapped and facing slaughter, he gathered together twenty of his strongest Green Bones, himself included, and sixty of his weaker and less experienced followers. “This is the true test of our brotherhood,” he said. “Only together, in our most dire moment, can we reach for the power of Heaven and turn the favor of the gods.”
The sixty less powerful men willingly gave their jade to their commander and their more skilled peers. Wearing far more jade than their bodies could normally handle was asking for death from the Itches, but health effects were of no concern.
That night, the twenty chosen Green Bones cut their tongues on their knives to seal their commitment. Together, they struck the lightly defended Shotarian base with so much savagery and extraordinary jade ability that surviving eyewitnesses claimed they leapt over walls and moved too fast for their enemies to see, that bullets flew away from them and they killed soldiers with a single touch. Twenty Green Bones brought down the gates and slaughtered nearly three hundred men before they were finally slain. Kaul Dushuron’s torn body was hung from the watchtower.