Jade War

Hilo released her and stood up, his fierce expression unchanged. “Then stop sitting in here pretending to talk to the gods. Go to bed and get enough rest. Or else get your moon blade and practice, put your mind in the right place.” He opened the door. “I’ll be in the training hall.”

* * *

In the morning, Shae rose and dressed in comfortable pants, fitted nylon top, traditional leather vest, and soft-soled shoes. She tied her hair back and examined herself in the mirror, debating how much of her jade to wear. Combatants hoping for every modicum of advantage wore all their jade into a duel, but that meant losing it all if one was defeated. Green Bones who were heavily jaded and thus gained little additional martial benefit from carrying their entire arsenal might be advised to think of their jade more prudently, as family wealth that they’d rather see passed on to family members instead of adorning the body of an enemy. Notwithstanding the promise of victory she’d made to Hilo in the prayer room last night, it was in Shae’s nature to be realistic about her chances. After a long moment of consideration, she removed her earrings and bracelets, leaving in place her anklets and two-tier choker.

She selected her best moon blade—twenty-nine and a half inches in length, with a slightly curved twenty-and-a-half-inch single-edged blade of the finest tempered Da Tanori steel and a hilt stippled with small jade stones. She was not remotely hungry, but she cracked an egg into hot porridge and forced herself to eat. She looked around at her surroundings, thinking that the house was nice and Wen had decorated it well—hardwood flooring and dark furniture with clean lines contrasted with the soft throw pillows, light walls, and creamy drapes.

The place was too large for one person, though. Shae thought of Maro, of all the ignored messages now filling up the tape in her answering machine, and her throat closed, making it impossible to finish the last bites of her breakfast. Guilt and regret swelled and settled below her gut like bloat. She ached, more desperately than she’d expected, to see Maro’s face, to hear his voice, to seize the chance to tell him that she did in fact love him. She knew that at last, when it was too late. She wished she’d thought of writing him a letter, but there was no time to do so properly, and speaking to him now would be of no good to either of them; she didn’t think she could explain herself, and Maro—idealistic, rational, argumentative Maro with his two jade studs and skepticism of clan culture—he would not understand. Maro had never dueled, had walked away rather than spill blood or risk his life to satisfy traditional notions of Green Bone honor. He’d tell her to do the same.

She washed and dried her single bowl and spoon, put them away, and turned off all the house lights. Then she walked outside to where Hilo and the Maiks waited by the Duchesse.

The drive was quiet. The darkness under Hilo’s eyes suggested that he had not slept any more than Shae had the previous night. He did not speak, and the Maik brothers, taking their cues from him, didn’t either. The morning after a holiday, traffic was light, and it didn’t take long to get to the Garrison House & Gardens in Juro Wood. Shae suspected that Ayt Mada had chosen the location for the symbolism. The Garrison House was a colonial mansion of red tiles and white colonnades; the residence of the Shotarian governor during the occupation period, it had been spared from destruction and turned into a national historic landmark containing a museum and public gardens. Shae and Ayt would be facing each other on the lawn, with the country’s most visible symbol of past foreign domination looming in the backdrop.

Creeping warmth in the air promised a hot day to come, but the sky was thick with clouds and a layer of summer smog hung low over the city, creating a diffuse, sunless gloom. As the Duchesse pulled up to the curb in front of the public gardens, Shae saw an enormous crowd bordering the lawn. Some people carried cameras and others had spread blankets on the ground. For a second, Shae thought they had interrupted some public event and would have to move the location of the duel. Then it dawned on her that the duel was the public event. Of course, dueling was not uncommon—but this was not a common duel. News of Shae’s challenge had created a storm of overnight attention. Clean blades between the Pillar and the Weather Man of the two largest clans in the country was dramatic enough, but moreover, there had never been a duel between two women of such high rank in their respective clans. Only in the postwar generation, with the country’s population of male Green Bones depleted, had it become more commonplace for girls to be trained to wear jade. These days, one in five graduates from the nation’s martial schools were female, but most men still scorned to duel a woman, and duels between women, even Fists, were often smirked at as something of a joke.