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Summer had barely begun and already the city of Janloon was like a spent lover—sticky and fragrant. Bero and Sampa were
only a full-blooded Abukei native, immune to jade, could palm a gem and walk out of a crowded restaurant without giving himself away.
Lantern Men were jadeless civilians after all; they were part of the clan and crucial to its workings, but they would not die for it. They were not Green Bones.
The Tems were part of the powerful and sprawling Mountain clan. They were a proud family of Green Bones, but Tem Ben was a stone-eye. It happened sometimes—recessive genetics combined to produce a Kekonese child as unresponsive to jade as any Abukei native.
So close to him, she could feel the tugging hum of his jade, a barely perceptible texture in the air that her body responded to with a yearning squeeze of the stomach as she leaned in closer to him. It had been such a long time since she’d been affected by jade that she felt light-headed.
The sun had set, leaving a smoggy afterglow that outlined the roofs of the buildings positioned around the central courtyard.
Her brother didn’t look any different from the last time she’d seen him two years ago, and Shae wondered, with unexpected self-consciousness, if she looked any different to him, if her hair or clothes made her look older, and foreign.
when she’d left, they’d been equals, of a sort. Now she was unemployed, single, and jadeless. He was one of the most powerful men in Janloon, with hundreds of Green Bones at his command.
A truly skilled Green Bone, of the kind Anden and all his classmates desired to be, could call upon any of the six disciplines—Strength, Steel, Perception, Lightness, Deflection, and Channeling—at any time.
“Green Bones were once united against foreign threats. It’s time we were that way again. Time that the clans came together in a new alliance. That’s why I’m proposing that you join us. The rewards would be great for you.” Ayt sat back, and her expression shifted, became flat and chilling. “If you spurn the hand we’re holding out to you, well, that is your choice of course. Just remember that we’re extending this offer in good faith and complete honesty. I strongly urge you to reciprocate that respect by not taking some position in the future that might place us at odds with each other.”
“A man who wears the crown of a king can’t wear the jade of a warrior. Gold and jade, never together. We Green Bones live by aisho. We defend the country from its enemies and the weak from the strong.”
Long ago in Heaven, according to Deitist teachings, the great extended family of gods lived in dazzling palaces of jade. Like any large family, the gods had their share of quarrels, but for the most part they went about their immortal lives happily, although once they had children and those children had children, residential space in Heaven grew too tight for comfort. So the gods constructed a second home, which they modeled after the first and called Earth. Earth was, at first, in every way as beautiful as Heaven, with vast seas, high mountains, lush forests, and countless wondrous plants and
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The wind howled and needles of rain hit the back of Bero’s neck as he hefted the last of the boxes into the van and clambered in after it.
