“What’s Lott-jen doing?” Ru asked.
“What did you think would happen when your school reported you missing?” Juen demanded. “There’s an emergency phone chain for situations like this. Word goes out to hundreds of our Fists and Fingers in every part of the city. When the Academy couldn’t find Niko, they pulled Jaya out of class and kept her under guard. She was furious. She also guessed where the two of you had gone. I had to send messengers running to Aben Soro to beg leave from our enemies to search inside their districts. It would’ve taken only one wrong rumor, one false witness, the suggestion that one of you had been taken or harmed, for something terrible to start. Lott is calling off the search now, before anything like that can happen.” The Horn’s voice rose in disbelief. “And when I find you, you’re standing around pointing a talon knife like you’re trying to start a street fight in the middle of Little Hammer.”
“Did you see those people, what they were doing?” Ru protested.
“Clanless anarchists have pulled that stunt across the city,” Juen spat. “They’re trying to shock people, to get media coverage and foreign sympathy. Members of the Kaul family threatening them with talon knives is the sort of thing these lunatics want. We have to catch and punish these people, but that’s for me to deal with as Horn in our districts, and for Aben Soro to deal with in Mountain territory. Not for you; you’re a twelve-year-old boy.”
Lott returned to the car and said, with relief, “Everything’s okay. We’re to take them back to the house.”
Equal degrees of guilt and dread made Ru sink into his seat. “Please, Uncle Juen, don’t tell our ma and da that we were in Little Hammer. Say you found us in the Armpit or somewhere else,” Ru begged. “At least not Ma.” Even when his father was furious, he was more forgiving of Ru’s antics. Ru couldn’t count on the same lenience from his mother.
“We can’t deny we were in Little Hammer, not when the Mountain’s people saw us there,” Niko said, speaking for the first time since they’d gotten into the car. “Uncle Juen, we were at the duel because of me. We took the risk of going into Little Hammer so I could watch Ayt Ato fight and learn more about him and his family.”
After a moment of stupefied silence, Ru blurted, “Hey, it was my idea!”
Niko quieted his younger brother with a flat and dangerous look that either came from being trained at the Academy as a Green Bone or occurred naturally to men of the Kaul family once they began nearing adulthood, because Ru had no idea how to summon it himself.
Juen studied them in the rearview mirror, eyes narrowed, perhaps trying to Perceive whether Niko was being sincere. Niko returned the Horn’s gaze calmly. The children of Green Bones are adept at lying only by omission and never by being outright dishonest.
“Uncle Juen, we should take Ru back to his school,” Niko said. “He has classes this afternoon and shouldn’t miss them. I’m the older brother and we went to the duel for my benefit, so I’ll go to the house and answer to our parents.”
Ru clenched his fists and opened his mouth to argue again, but couldn’t come up with anything else to say. Ru had always looked up to his older brother. Niko didn’t tease him or act superior. Even when he was annoyed or exasperated, he didn’t hit Ru. And Niko was smart, always seeming to know more than the other children in the family. But sometimes, Ru couldn’t help but think it was unfair that Niko had taken his place as the eldest son in the family.
This was not because Ru felt sorry for himself as a stone-eye. He understood that he couldn’t grow up to wear jade or lead the clan, but that didn’t make him feel deficient or less loved. Of course, he felt excluded from the experiences of his siblings and cousins, but his father always reminded him that he also had things his brother and sister did not—his dog Koko, his own room at home with a video game console, more time for relayball.
Nevertheless, Ru felt that between him and Niko, he ought to be the one in charge. He was the one who talked more and came up with ideas for what they should do. Niko was quiet and went along with things—until he didn’t. Only when it inexplicably suited him would he suddenly assume the mantle of firstborn son and clan heir.
Juen Nu took orders from no one but the Pillar. But Ru could tell, from the amused glance and shrug that Juen exchanged with Lott, that the men were impressed by the way Niko had made his point. Speaking reasonably, accepting responsibility, and most of all, taking a risk in order to gain knowledge and potential advantage over an enemy—all those things were a credit to his greenness.