When asked if he feared Ayt would kill him for speaking, the fallen kingpin of Ti Pasuiga chuckled. “Of course she will kill me,” he said, with a dismissive wave at the camera. “There’s a saying in Shotarian: ‘Marry the devil, get the devil’s mother.’ It’s the deal you can’t escape. The jade business is the devil and Ayt Mada is its mother.”
Iyilo’s television interview had been immediately amplified by newspaper and radio, and excerpts were being rebroadcast despite outrage from Ayt’s supporters, who insisted the interview was fiction, a ploy by the No Peak clan to bring down the Mountain by bribing a condemned criminal to lie for their benefit.
Nevertheless, the damage that Shae and Anden had hoped for was done. Iyilo’s testimony was too believable. It did not possess any of the rehearsed quality of a canned speech, but instead had the defiant, nostalgic, rambling quality of a man with nothing left to lose, taking the opportunity to get all his thoughts off his chest. At the request of Kekon National Broadcasting, two capable Green Bones of the famously neutral Haedo Shield clan had accompanied Toh Kita, and they swore on their jade and their clan’s honor that they did not Perceive any deception in the prisoner’s statements.
Iyilo’s stories validated whispered rumors that had circulated for years within Mountain circles. A few days after the news broke, the clan fractures became impossible to hide. Ayt Atosho, thirty-five years old and long the successor-in-waiting, remained silent, but his relatives spoke for him. Councilwoman Koben Tin Bett was the first to sound the call for Ayt Mada to step down as Pillar. Six highprofile Lantern Men defected from the Mountain clan en masse; two of them went so far as to switch allegiance to No Peak. Four other members of the Royal Council declared they were ending their affiliation with the Mountain and were joining the ranks of independent councilmen; they would not accept patronage from the clan until Ayt Mada was out of power.
And now this: Ayt’s own warriors standing outside her gate.
“Did you have Iyilo killed?” Shae asked.
“No,” Ayt answered bluntly. “Perhaps it was done by someone acting out of service to the Mountain, but I didn’t whisper his name. Why would I? All the damage he could do was already done. I’ve told you before, Kaul Shae-jen, I don’t kill out of spite.” It was a remarkable admission—Ayt confessing that she no longer possessed an iron grip on the clan, that she was losing control of the people under her.
Iyilo had been scheduled to be extradited to Kekon, but security in Uwiwan prisons was notoriously poor. Within forty-eight hours of the interview being aired, Iyilo was found dead in his cell, his throat slit by one of the guards, who was himself nowhere to be found. Most people assumed the Mountain had done it. Some believed that No Peak had killed the man now that they had no use for him. Yet others said it had been one of Iyilo’s enemies in the Uwiwa Islands, of which he had many. Shae supposed it didn’t matter what the truth was. If Hilo had given the order, he had not informed her. He had, however, kept his word to the man, as he always did. On the afternoon before his death, Iyilo had spoken for two hours on a long-distance phone call with his wife and children, all of them safely in Port Massy with new identities.
Ayt turned to face Shae at last. The past several years had not been kind to the Pillar. Her spine was unbowed, but gray the color of steel wool showed at the roots of her coarse, chin-length dyed hair and there were deep grooves between her nose and lips from a lifetime of holding her mouth straight and steady. The two women regarded each other across a gulf of long understanding and enmity. Shae wondered if Ayt was noticing her decline as well, pitying her jadelessness.
When did we get old? Shae wondered. Some believed, with little scientific substantiation, that jade slowed aging, at least for a while, although no one would suggest the lifestyle of a Green Bone was conducive to longevity. There was even a saying among Green Bones: Jade warriors are young, and then they are ancient. It had been true of her grandfather, Shae admitted, and it seemed true of Ayt Mada as well.
“Would you like some tea?” Ayt asked unexpectedly. “I have a fresh pot steeping.” She crossed to one of the leather armchairs and sat down.
“I would like that.” Shae seated herself on the sofa across from Ayt.
Ayt took out two cups and poured for her guest first. It occurred to Shae that without any sense of Perception, she would have no warning if Ayt decided to kill her, nor would she have any chance of defending herself. Ayt could snap her neck as easily as pour her tea.