Hilo’s fingers spasmed open and the talon knife slipped from his grasp and fell into the gravel at his side. He spun away from Tar like a puppet jerked on strings. “Godsdamnit,” he whispered. “Fuck. Fuck.” He leaned a hand heavily on the nearest tree, head bowed, and put his other hand over his eyes.
“I’ll do it, Hilo-jen,” Tar said from behind him. He picked up Hilo’s fallen talon knife and got unsteadily to his feet, brushing at the dirt on his knees. “Walk away and I’ll handle it.” This simple statement, delivered so easily, so matter-of-factly, snapped the last of Hilo’s resolve. It was exactly what Tar had been doing for him for years—handling things. The worst, most vicious sorts of things, quietly, reliably, efficiently, and without complaint—so that Hilo could walk away.
Hilo turned around. “Give me back the knife, Tar.” His Pillarman handed it to him and Hilo stowed it in its sheath. He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes, his mind churning. “Here’s what will happen.” He lowered his hands and said, “You’ll be stripped of your jade and exiled from Kekon. You can’t come back, ever. If you try, your life will be forfeit and anyone can take it with my approval. The clan will want your blood, and I’ll have to convince everyone that the Itches are to blame and you should be allowed to keep your life, so long as you never wear green again. I’m sending you away, Tar, to somewhere you’ll have to start over, without jade and without clan.”
Tar shook his head, his expression deeply confused, as if he wasn’t sure whether to thank or blame Hilo for sparing him. “I’m nothing without jade and clan, Hilo-jen,” he exclaimed. “Have someone else execute me, if you don’t want to. It would be easier on everyone, and it’s the right thing to do.”
“Maybe,” Hilo said quietly, “but I can’t lose another brother. I’ve lost too many already.” He put his hands on Tar’s shoulders, and pulled him close. He dropped his forehead against Tar’s. “I could always count on you. That’s why I’ve always asked for too much. I’m asking you for one more thing now, the last thing I need from you. I’m asking you to live.”
_______
When Hilo came back into the house two hours later, he found Wen sitting on the floor in a corner of their bedroom, knees pulled up to her chest, the side of her head leaning against the wall. Her eyes were red and swollen. She barely raised them as he entered.
“Is it done?” she asked in a dull voice. “Is my brother dead?”
Hilo hung his jacket on the bedpost and sat down heavily on one corner of the mattress. “No,” he said. “Stripped and exiled. He’ll be gone by the time the sun comes up.” He let out a breath full of emotional exhaustion, and pulled a handful of jade pieces—rings, studs, bell, watch—from his pocket and placed them on the bedside table. Tar’s jade. Hilo had promised him it would go to Maik Cam someday. “There will be a lot of people in the clan who’ll say he should’ve paid with his life. And they’ll be right to be angry. Iyn and her family deserve better. So I’ll have to deal with that. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill my brother. What kind of a person could do that?”
Wen was staring at him, her mouth slightly open as if she meant to speak but had lost the words. Hilo unbuttoned his shirt. The sky was beginning to lighten over the house and he desperately needed a couple hours of sleep before the certain storm of the day to come. “I’m going to make some changes,” he said slowly. “Tar’s people, his Nails, they’ll go back under Juen. The whole greener side of the clan should answer to the Horn again. The Pillarman used to be something different under Grandda and Lan. Because of the clan war and who Tar is, I changed it. Whatever I sent him to do, he said yes. We needed that. But I don’t want it to be that way anymore.”
He glanced over as he took off his watch and talon knife and dropped them on the dresser. “The Pillarman used to be a person who didn’t answer to the half of the clan with jade or the half with money,” he said. “Someone who was always at the Pillar’s side, someone who gave him advice he needed to hear, who made everything run smoother. Who helped the Pillar to be the Pillar.”
Hilo got up and went over to Wen. He held out a hand and raised her to her feet. “You’re that person,” he said quietly. “I couldn’t be Pillar without you, and I still can’t. We’ve both hurt each other because we were too stubborn about what we expected, and we paid badly for that. But what’s the point of life if we give up on the people we love?” He enfolded her into his arms and stroked her smooth hair. He kissed her on the forehead and cheeks and mouth. “Wen, will you be my Pillarman?”