“I am,” Anden said.
Ayt’s face twitched. “What about Kaul Shaelinsan? After all her efforts, I deceived her. I put both of her brothers in the ground. Why isn’t she here?”
“She told me she has nothing else to say to you,” Anden answered. “She spared your life once, and she says that’s all the gods can ask of her in this lifetime.”
Anden handed Ayt the letter he had brought with him, written in Niko’s hand. Having read it, he knew it was short and impersonal, explaining the details of the decision without any personal comment. A copy of it had been sent to Koben Ato.
“You’re to be exiled from Kekon,” Anden explained to Ayt. “You’ll live out the rest of your days in Ygutan. Arrangements have been made to transport you to a small oil town in the north that’s supposed to be quite dull. Jade is still illegal in that country, and there’s none of it within hundreds of kilometers of that place.”
Color rose slowly in Ayt’s face and the pages of the letter trembled in her tightening grip. “Why?” she demanded. “Why the pointless mercy? Why not execute me properly?”
“There’s no gain in it,” Anden explained. “You’re a jadeless old woman now. Killing you would look bad, no matter how much you deserve it. You were a powerful leader not only of the Mountain clan, but the country. Surely, there are people out there who are still sympathetic toward you. Why make you into a martyr, why give you that last satisfaction and risk more strife when we’re turning over a new leaf with the Kobens and taking the remnants of the Mountain as tributaries?” Anden opened his hands. “At least, that’s what the Pillar thinks.”
It was the first real decision that Kaul Nikoyan had made as Pillar, after talking to Anden, Shae, and Lott, then quietly considering the issue himself for several weeks. If the careful, dispassionate way he had come to his conclusion was indicative of the type of Pillar he would be, Anden was certain his nephew would turn out to be a formidable Green Bone leader in his own way.
Ayt’s sneer pulled back the corners of her eyes and seemed almost physically painful. She looked as if she wanted to laugh or kill someone, and for a moment, she was frightening again. “I can’t believe I would ever miss Kaul Hiloshudon.”
Anden said, “You’ll have two more days in Janloon to pack the personal belongings you need, and to visit your family’s grave, if you wish. Should you change your mind during that time and decide to follow Iwe’s path after all, none of the guards will stand in your way. If you accept your exile and never make another attempt to gain jade, return to Janloon, or affect the course of Green Bone matters, after your death you’ll be brought back to Kekon and buried in the Ayt family plot. If you break the terms, your name will be quietly whispered by every clan, and your bones will never touch Kekonese soil.”
Ayt’s proud bearing crumpled bit by bit as Anden spoke. The indignant scorn she’d mustered for a few minutes dissolved into exhaustion, as if a mask she’d worn for her entire life was slipping off, revealing a person underneath that Anden had never seen before, not even when she’d lain near death in his apartment. Ayt looked sad, more deeply sad than Anden could’ve imagined.
“Tell your Pillar that he has nothing more to worry about from me,” she said, when he was done. There was no more anger or vindictiveness in her voice, only a factual defeat. Dignity if not grace. “I’ve given everything I have, and I have nothing left. I know my time has passed.”
Ayt turned to gaze out the narrow window of the tiny apartment, over the bit of the city she could see. The sunlight slanting into the room cut a line across the carpet and lit dancing motes of dust in the air. Noises from the street below—the rumble of a bus, a bicycle horn, something heavy being tossed into a garbage bin—intruded faintly. None of the people going about their day outside had any idea that the woman who’d been Pillar of the Mountain sat in a small room above them, listening.
“Many years ago, when I saw what was happening around us, I imagined a bold and necessary future,” Ayt said. “Green Bones united into a single powerful clan, wielding control over our jade and standing strong over Kekon, preserving our traditions and protecting us from enemies across the ocean as well as those here at home. It was up to us, as jade warriors, to meet all the threats and opportunities that time would inevitably bring to our door.”
Ayt pulled her sweater close but lifted her chin, as if facing a crowd waiting for her to speak. “Everything I’ve done, every great and terrible choice I’ve made over many years, every bit of normal human happiness I sacrificed from my own life, I did willingly and purposefully, to see this future. And I can see it now, finally—only not in the way I imagined, not with my clan, and not with me. Yet maybe by some terrible irony only the gods can understand, because of me.” She placed her hands inside her sleeves, holding her bare arms. “That’s the one satisfaction I will take with me to my death.”