Niko gazed at him expectantly with the same frowning look of concentration Hilo had seen on the boy’s face when he was drawing or building or engrossed in a book, but Hilo could Perceive the boy’s little heart thumping. Hilo patted his pockets, but let his hands drop. He tried not to smoke too much in front of the kids.
“Normally when someone betrays the Pillar and the clan, they have to be punished, they have to be killed, no matter who they are, even if they used to be a friend or someone you loved,” Hilo explained. “Your aunt Shae had to kill the old Weather Man because he went against your father. And remember your uncle Tar told you the story about the time when we had to kill a man named Fuyin who used to be one of our own Fists, because he turned to the Mountain clan. I didn’t want to execute him, but if I didn’t, then I’d be failing my duty as the Pillar, and it would mean anyone could betray us.”
“My da had to kill my own ma?” Niko asked, horrified.
“No, Niko, your da was softhearted like I said, and he let them go. Even though it was the wrong decision to make as a Pillar, it turned out to be a lucky thing, because she was pregnant with you at the time, and so you were born in Stepenland. You already know about the clan war with the Mountain and how your da was killed when you were a baby. He didn’t know you’d been born. We didn’t find out until almost two years later.”
Hilo watched his nephew carefully as he went on. “When I found out about you, I went to Stepenland with your uncle Tar to talk to Eyni. For your sake, I forgave her for her betrayal and told her she could return to Janloon and live here with the family so you wouldn’t have to grow up in a foreign place, far away from all of us who love you very much. She and her boyfriend agreed at first, but they lied and tried to steal you away again. They couldn’t be reasoned with. It was bad enough that they had shamed your father, but now they wanted to keep you away from your country and your family. So you see that I couldn’t let that happen.”
Niko’s lips trembled and his eyes welled with tears. “Was she really so bad that you had to kill her?” he asked plaintively, angry and ashamed that his own mother was among the lowest of people, a clan traitor.
“Niko-se, first of all, I did it very quick, so she didn’t have any time to be scared and it didn’t hurt at all. And it’s not always that people are bad in their hearts so much as bad in their decisions. A good person can go through something in their life, or be around the wrong sorts of people, and have their mind twisted. Unfortunately, Eyni was one of those people, and if she’d taken you away, you would’ve never known me or your ma, or your uncles or aunts, or your brother or sister or cousins. You would never even know who your real father was. You’d never go to the Academy or become a Green Bone. Would you have wanted that?”
Niko shook his head with wretched vehemence. Hilo put his arms around the boy and pulled him into a tight hug. Niko was too big for Hilo to hold on his lap the way he used to, and he wondered at and regretted how quickly his children were growing, how rapidly time seemed to be passing.
Niko rubbed his teary face against the shoulder of Hilo’s shirt. “Am I going to be a bad person too, if my mother was a traitor who had to be killed?”
“Don’t ever think that,” Hilo said sharply, drawing back and looking the boy seriously in the face. “No one is destined to become like their parents. In fact, we can learn from their mistakes and be less likely to repeat them. Your real ma is the one who raised you. She, and your uncle Tar, and your uncle Kehn—who was killed when you were young so you might not remember him as much—their own father was executed and their family was disgraced. They turned that around, and now the name Maik is at the top of the clan and spoken in the same breath as ours. You’re your own person, Niko. You have many people who love you and are proud of you. And everyone says you take after your father, you look just like him. So never think that the bad way your mother died has anything to do with you. Understand?”
Niko sniffed and nodded, and Hilo drew him back into an embrace and kissed the top of his head. “Now you see why we didn’t tell you this when you were younger,” he said. “You wouldn’t have understood, and you might’ve been scared or confused.” There was probably still some fear and confusion, Hilo granted that much, but that was unavoidable and could only be alleviated with love and reassurance. “If you ever feel like you want to talk about this more, you should come straightaway to me or your ma.”