After she’d explained their plan, Hilo appeared impressed, but said, “Ayt and her Weather Man will find a way around that, sooner or later.”
“Yes,” Shae admitted, “but it’ll slow them down badly and hamper them enough that they won’t be able to keep up their efforts to buy out our Lantern Men.”
“Juen is still going to have to take as much of Lukang as possible and send the barukan who work for the Mountain to prison or into graves, as many of them as we can.”
Shae nodded as she placed another cushion under her injured thigh to relieve the throbbing ache. “We may have lost the chance to gain Six Hands Unity as a tributary—but it’s possible we can still pull a victory out of this situation.”
Hilo was quiet for a minute. “You’re a good Weather Man, Shae.” Grudging pride and a touch of bitterness sat in his voice.
She leaned her head back against the pillows and closed her eyes as exhaustion finally caught up with her. “You’re a good wartime Pillar, Hilo,” she murmured. “And we’re fighting a war. Our own slow war.”
She was nearly asleep as Hilo adjusted the blanket over her. “I told Andy to come over later today and take a look at that leg,” he mentioned. “Who knows if the doctors in Lukang are any good?” She felt his lips plant a kiss on her brow, and a moment later, she heard the front door close behind him.
_______
Shae hobbled into her office on crutches two days later. Although she noticed more of the clan’s Fists and Fingers on the streets, tense and watchful, everything else in Janloon seemed normal. The weather was pleasant and red Autumn Festival lamps were everywhere, along with signs promoting seasonal retail sales. Hundreds of kilometers away, the violence in Lukang continued but Janlooners were treating the news as a regional issue in the south caused by a nasty internal schism in the minor Six Hands Unity clan. By unsaid mutual agreement, neither the Mountain nor No Peak were doing anything in Janloon to change that impression. The Mountain and its tributary forces still controlled most of Lukang, but No Peak and the breakaway faction of Six Hands Unity had successfully repelled barukan gangs to hang on to the valuable port districts.
The late Jio Wasu had worried, Lukang is growing, but that also means big-city troubles. Clan war was big-city troubles indeed. His traitor nephew, Jio Somu, had gone into hiding to escape his own relatives who wanted to kill him.
Shae passed Luto’s office and stood outside of it for several remorseful minutes, leaning on her crutches. Only now that the young man was dead did the office feel like it should be his. She made the slow trek to her own office and told her secretary to begin gathering candidate resumes for a new chief of staff.
At noon, Shae turned on the television in her office to watch Woon Papi deliver No Peak’s statement to the press calling for a trade embargo on the Uwiwa Islands.
“Yesterday, the Royal Council introduced strong and necessary legislation to reinforce national security and combat rising crime in our cities,” the clan’s Sealgiver announced in his reliably calm and factual manner. The reporters who were present took down his words politely, even though everyone was well aware the No Peak clan was behind the proposed embargo in the first place. Kaul Hilo and Woon Papi had gone to Wisdom Hall the morning after Shae had returned to Janloon and called a meeting of all the most senior No Peak–affiliated members of government. A bill had made it to the floor of the national legislature within twenty-four hours.
“The Uwiwa Islands is the first destination for jade smuggled out of Kekon, and one of the world’s largest producers of illegal SN1,” Woon said on-screen. He provided alarming statistics about jade trafficking, drug addiction, sex tourism, and street crime, then deftly connected the civil war in Six Hands Unity and the outbreak of street violence in Lukang to corrupting foreign influences. Woon was wearing a steel-gray suit and blue tie. Jade gleamed from his wrist. Shae thought he looked handsome on camera, in an understated and imperturbable way.
“The No Peak clan unreservedly backs the proposed trade embargo and the Pillar asks every loyal member of the clan and every concerned Kekonese citizen to do the same,” the Sealgiver concluded. “We invite other Green Bone clans to join us in voicing their support, and we will of course lend any assistance that is within our ability to help the government enact and enforce these measures going forward.”
When Shae had explained the strategy to Hilo, she’d said, “With an embargo in place, no goods, no money, and no jade will travel between Kekon and that country. Regardless of whether we win control of Lukang or not, if we block access to the Uwiwa Islands, we break the Mountain’s connection to the black market. We do that, and we defund Ayt Mada’s war chest.” She was certain the Mountain was transferring funds from Iyilo’s jade and shine sales through subsidiaries and shell companies, so the embargo would also outlaw any Kekonese company from doing business with any Uwiwan ones.