“I’m sorry, it’s . . . clan things. Nothing for you to worry about,” Shae said as the car pulled up in front of the Weather Man’s house. “Go wash up for dinner.”
Tia ran inside, dropping her bag by the door and shouting hello to her father as she went up the stairs. Shae followed slowly. The house smelled of garlic and spices and cooking meat. Woon came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. “I didn’t oversmoke the duck this time,” he said proudly. Woon had barely cooked anything before the age of fifty but was now far more skilled at it than her. Seeing her expression or Perceiving her churning emotions, he stopped, the smile sliding off his face. Shae went to her husband and put her arms around him, laying her head against his broad chest without a word.
It didn’t matter how quickly No Peak grew or how strong its warriors and businesses were. It could not compete against such overwhelming weapons. Ayt Mada would finally destroy the Kaul family and take the No Peak clan. It might be quickly orchestrated, or it might simply be a slow, inexorable defeat. Either way, the outcome was not in question.
It’s over, Shae thought. Ayt’s won. We’re finished.
_______
“We’re not finished until we’re all dead,” Hilo said.
Shae had called an immediate meeting. The leadership of the No Peak clan was gathered in the Pillar’s study in the Kaul house. When Shae had been a child, this room had seemed huge and intimidating. Her grandfather, his Weather Man, and his Horn would sit in leather armchairs, smoking and discussing clan affairs, sometimes late into the night.
Now, the study seemed intimate and conspiratorial. Hilo sat slouched in the largest armchair, tapping the edge of a playing card against his thigh. He had them lying around all over the place to keep his hands busy whenever he felt the craving for a cigarette. Lott was standing next to the flat-screen television. Wen and Shae shared the sofa, and Anden occupied the remaining armchair. Shae had explained all of her conclusions to them, laying out every aspect of Ayt Mada’s master stroke. “It’s a brilliant and elegant plan,” she admitted.
Hilo flipped the playing card between his fingers and looked around the room at his family, his closest advisors. “We always knew we’d have to face Ayt directly again, to finish what was started so long ago,” he said. “All these years of slow war between the clans have been about making ourselves strong enough. We became too big to swallow, too big to kill, so now Ayt has to gamble with everything she has. The thing about brilliant, elegant plans is that it doesn’t take much to fuck them up.”
Shae said, “The Euman Deal closes in less than ninety days.”
“Then we don’t have a lot of time, obviously,” Hilo said, a bit impatiently. “When something has to be done, there’s always a way to do it. So let’s decide what that is.”
Hours of discussion ensued on that night and the following nights. Phone calls were made, flights were booked, meetings were arranged. The No Peak clan was a beast with arms that reached across the world, and it would need to move several of them quickly and quietly and at the right time, brandishing weapons that it had cultivated and kept hidden until now. Ninety days. Boat Day was approaching. By the time of the Autumn Festival, either the Mountain clan would be in de facto control of the country, or Ayt Mada’s reign would be over. There was no middle ground. This was the last great gamble either clan could make.
To Shae’s surprise, her brother didn’t seem to share her dread, at least not outwardly. Hilo gave the orders and made the arrangements that would doom them or save them, but he also talked about plans for the summer, possibly taking Wen, Niko, and Jaya on vacation for a week before everything became too busy. “I’ve heard good things about the Bittari Valley in Tomascio,” he said. “You and Woon and Tia could rent the villa next door.” He commissioned renovation plans for the estate, saying that the courtyard looked dated and they needed a bigger home theater and a nicer training hall. He spent many hours with Niko, in conversations that Shae was not privy to.
“What else is there to be worried about?” he asked her, when she expressed incredulity at his lack of concern as they sat on the patio together one night after the heat had burned off the last of the drizzly Northern Sweat. “Don’t you remember we once sat out here all night before New Year’s Day, thinking we might both soon be dead? And here we are. So many good things have happened since then, and also so many terrible things that it’s hard to be afraid of anything anymore. Whatever’s going to happen will happen, so the most important thing is that we appreciate what we have and the people we care about.” He drew a single stowed cigarette and lighter from the breast pocket of his shirt and said, as he lit up, “I’m going to have a smoke, though, just in case it’s my last one. Don’t tell Wen.”