Shae hurled a tight vertical prow of Deflection into the narrow space between two of the Mountain Green Bones, knocking them staggering and driving a wedge into the Mountain’s line. Desperate Strength and Lightness surged into Shae’s limbs. With her grip still on Luto’s arm, she leapt for the opening, plowing through the chaos—and stumbled as Luto’s weight dragged her down. She turned in time to see him hit the ground, the side of his neck blown open.
Shae’s mind recoiled, barely registering the sight before her right leg buckled under her and a searing pain tore through her thigh, radiating down her leg and up into her pelvis. She Steeled in a panic and tried to rise. Nau Suen threw a precise, forceful Deflection that hit Shae in the chest like a hard shove. She slammed unceremoniously into the back wall and crumpled.
The gunfire had stopped, but Shae could not hear a thing. She might as well have been underwater. Jio Wasu lay sprawled on the ground next to his Weather Man, his body riddled with bullets. Jio Somu, the disloyal nephew, stared at his uncle’s corpse with a ghastly, contorted expression. Even though he hadn’t personally pulled the trigger, from this moment on, he would be known as a man who’d murdered his own Pillar and kin.
The man’s hands curled into fists by his sides. Shae saw his lips move, trembling. “You should’ve listened to me, old man.” Two Mountain Green Bones tugged Jio Somu out of the room.
Shae looked over at Luto, her chief of staff for all of six months. Luto’s lifeless eyes were wide open and he was staring at the ceiling, as if surprised.
Nau Suen stepped around the growing pools of blood and came over to her. “Kauljen.”
“You promised the nephew you would let them live,” Shae said through gritted teeth.
“They attacked first,” Nau pointed out. “It’s for the new Pillar’s own good. His uncle might’ve come back for vengeance. Tell me, how does your own Pillar deal with those who’ve betrayed the clan?”
Shae could not see her talon knife anywhere. She must’ve dropped it at some point between being shot and thrown into a wall. She felt light-headed and Nau’s words seemed muffled. Her hand was pressed tightly over the gunshot wound in her thigh and blood was pumping between her fingers, soaking the bottom of her skirt. The pain was excruciating. She was fascinated by how the narrow three-inch heel of her right leather pump was broken off, but except for the bullet hole, her pantyhose were intact. Behind Nau, two of the Mountain’s Fists were bent over, removing the jade from Jio’s and Tyne’s bodies.
Nau crouched down next to her. Shae forced herself to focus, to meet the Horn’s disconcertingly piercing gaze. “You realize, Naujen,” she said, licking her dry lips, and managing a pained but venomous smile, “that there’s no way to make my death here look like a heart attack.”
The Horn looked at her with a curious, unsmiling expression. “If you die here, Kaul Hiloshudon will come down from the forest, and our clans will be at war in the streets by tomorrow morning. That’s not what Ayt-jen sent me to accomplish in Lukang. I came here to punish a traitor, and to secure the city for the Mountain. Guns are messy, ridiculous weapons, though—flying metal and Deflections everywhere.” His eyes traveled from her face down to her leg. “The bullet missed your femoral artery. You’re lucky.”
Shae turned her chin toward Luto’s body. “You can’t say the same for him.”
“You brought a man with no jade into a meeting of Green Bone clans.” Nau didn’t even look at the body. “Carelessness. Like letting a child play in the middle of a busy street.” A surge of remorse and hatred pounded in Shae’s head. She wondered where her talon knife was, whether she could still get to Nau.
“You’re welcome to try,” said the Horn, as if she had spoken aloud. “I’m retiring next year. I stayed on as long as I did for Ayt-jen, but the Horn is a young man’s job.” Nau turned over his shoulder and gave quick orders to his men, instructing them to take Jio Somu away from the premises for his own protection and to return the jadestripped bodies of Jio Wasu and Tyne Retu to their families. They left at once to do so.
Nau took three cloth napkins from the table and tied them together with strong knots. He wrapped the joined length of cloth around Shae’s thigh above the wound and bound it with a firm yank that made her hiss in pain. He jammed a pair of chopsticks through two layers of the makeshift wrapping and twisted several times, cinching the tourniquet tight with the matter-of-fact efficiency of an army field medic. Nau must be nearly sixty. As a teenager, he’d been a resistance fighter during the Shotarian occupation, a comrade of Ayt Yu and her own grandfather. Despite his inhumanly high level of skill in Perception, he made no effort to use medical Channeling. Perhaps he’d only ever learned how to use his jade abilities to end lives, not preserve them.