Jade War

This contest would not be a joke. Shae and Ayt Mada would be making history, no matter the outcome. Social progress, Kekonese-style, Shae mused. Equal opportunity to die by the blade.

She closed her eyes for a minute before getting out of the car. Even when the mind is determined, the body objects vehemently to the possibility of injury and death. Shae’s hands had gone clammy, and there was a tightness in her chest that she tried to alleviate with controlled breaths. She wondered if her thudding pulse was as Perceivable to every nearby Green Bone as it was to her. It occurred to her that her classmates from Belforte Business School in Windton would be horrified and flabbergasted by what she was about to do. Oddly, the thought made her smile.

Tar got out and opened the back door for her and Hilo; the spectators edged forward eagerly but kept a respectful distance from the intimidating presence of No Peak’s leaders as they stepped out onto the lawn. Seconds after their arrival, a long, sleek, silver Stravaconi Monarch pulled up behind the Duchesse. Ayt Mada emerged, along with her Horn and two Fists. Ayt appeared unruffled by the presence of the crowd; she nodded casually toward the Mountain loyalists who called out and saluted her. She was wearing a black tank top and comfortable silk pants with a tied drawstring. Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. A pair of sunglasses perched on top of her head. As she walked to the center of the lawn, she removed them and handed them to Nau Suen, who tucked them into the breast pocket of his shirt as if he regularly held on to the Pillar’s sunglasses during duels. Ayt looked as if she were stopping by the event in between running Sixthday errands, except for the fact that she was carrying her thirty-two-inch jade-hilted moon blade slung over one shoulder. All of her jade sat in its usual place, coiled in silver bracelets up both her arms.

The time had come. Shae drew her moon blade and held it out to Hilo. Her brother turned his head to stare across the lawn at Ayt and her people. He turned back slowly, looked down at Shae’s blade, and spat on the white metal for luck. Shae opened her mouth to say something—she was not even sure what—but Hilo dropped his hands onto her shoulders. His grip and aura fell on her like a warm lead vest. Leaning close, he brought his cheek next to hers and whispered into her ear. “Four cars full of our Fists and Fingers are on their way here, to block off the Lo Low Street tunnel and every road out of this place. There are others headed to the Ayt mansion, to the Factory, to half a dozen other Mountain properties in the city.” His voice was soft and chillingly devoid of inflection. “Some blades can’t be cleaned.”

The iciness of Hilo’s words ran down Shae’s back in a wave of abrupt understanding. Unlike her, he had not been awake all night worrying or praying; he’d been making military preparations. If Shae fell under Ayt’s sword, Hilo would not allow their enemies to leave the grounds alive. He would break the immutable law of the clean blade; he would take forbidden vengeance on her killer and plunge the clans, and the entire city, back into all-out war.

Shae was horrified. She was risking her life to clear her name and her clan’s reputation by solving a dispute of personal honor in the old way, the Green Bone way, under the eyes of Old Uncle and in adherence to rules that all Kekonese held as inviolable stricture. Duels were traditionally meant to contain personal feuds and prevent them from escalating into family or clan vendettas. Breaking the pact of the clean blade would be unacceptable; it would put all the fault for the resumption of war squarely on No Peak. Hilo was a Green Bone to his core and the Pillar of the clan; for him to so flagrantly break the moral code they lived by—it would ruin everything

. It would make a mockery of the jade warrior honor she was dueling to uphold in the first place.

Before Shae could put any of these thoughts into words, Hilo stepped away from her, his expression dark and unreadable. He turned and walked to the corner where the Maik brothers waited, and Shae was alone in the center of the lawn, save for the impatient red intensity of Ayt Mada, standing across from her, moon blade already drawn, waiting to begin.