Jade City (The Green Bone Saga, #1)

by Fonda Lee

Summer had barely begun and already the city of Janloon was like a spent lover—sticky and fragrant.

He walked away before he could be caught staring. It was ridiculous that such a corpulent, aging drunk was a Green Bone. True, Shon had only a little jade on him, but unimpressive as he was, sooner or later someone would take it, along with his life perhaps.

The Maiks were well-known members of the No Peak clan, which controlled most of the neighborhoods on this side of the city. One of them glanced in Bero’s direction.

the wartime years, and afterward. Like his predecessors, Mr. Une was a loyal Lantern Man in the No Peak clan. Every time Hilo was in, he came around personally to pay his respects. “Please let me know if there is anything else I can have brought out to you,” he insisted.

He stared as the red-faced Green Bone dragged at the terrified Abukei boy like a grasping demon from a pit.

A film had been lifted from his eyes and ears. The scrape of chair legs, the crash of a plate, the taste of the air on his tongue—everything was razor sharp. Someone reached out to grab him, but he was so slow, and Bero was so fast. He swerved with ease and leapt off the surface of a table, scattering dishes and eliciting screams. There was a sliding screen door ahead of him that led out onto the patio overlooking the harbor. Without thinking, without pausing, he crashed through the barrier like a charging bull. The wooden latticework shattered, and Bero stumbled through the body-sized hole he had made with a mad shout of exultation. He felt no pain at all, only a wild, fierce invincibility. This was the power of jade.

It was terrible enough that the Twice Lucky had been shamed, that the restaurant’s kitchen had harbored jade thieves, but for the two boys to be publicly slain right next to the buffet dessert table—no business could survive the stain of such bad luck.

a long line of small jade stones was embedded in the skin of his collarbone like a necklace fused into his flesh.

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.

At the age of thirty-five he was supposed to be in the prime of his health and at the peak of his power. It was why his grandfather had finally consented to cede leadership to him, why the rest of No Peak accepted that the mantle had passed from the legendary but old and ailing Kaul Seningtun to his grandson. If word got out that the Pillar of the clan was suffering health problems, it would not reflect well on him.

No one could say Kaul Hilo was not dedicated to his job, particularly when it involved food and drink, pretty girls and loud music, bars and gambling dens, the occasional incident of explosive violence.

Ayt Mada, adopted daughter of the great Ayt Yugontin, and now the Pillar of the Mountain clan. “I’ll wager my jade that grasping bitch not only knows about this but had a hand in arranging it.”

Lan looked between his Horn and his Weather Man. The two roles existed to be the right and left hand of the Pillar, responsible for the military and business arms of the clan, respectively. The Horn was visible, tactical, the clan’s most formidable warrior, leader of the Fists and the Fingers who patrolled and defended clan territory and the residents within from rivals and street criminals. The Weather Man was strategic, operational, the brain working behind the scenes through an office full of capable Luckbringers, managing the clan’s substantial flow of tribute money, patronage, and investments. A certain amount of conflict between these two critical roles was hardly surprising—expected, even. But Hilo and Doru were starkly opposed in nature as well as position. Looking at the two men, Lan questioned what to rely on: Hilo’s strength and street instincts, or Doru’s experience and caution.

While Du was off fighting for his country, who knows what swamp demon snuck into your mother’s bedroom to spawn that boy.”

You might look like him, but you’ll never be half the man he was. That’s why the other clans think they can disrespect you. That’s why Eyni left you.”

any self-respecting Kekonese man would feel entitled. Perhaps it would have been a more fitting way for a Pillar to act. But it would have been pointless. An empty gesture. He wouldn’t have kept Eyni; she was already determined to go. All he could have done was trample out her happiness and make her hate him. And if you loved someone, truly loved them, shouldn’t their happiness matter, even more than your honor?

Like automobiles and firearms, jade was not something that deteriorating elderly folks ought to possess. Not that Kaul Sen would ever willingly relinquish even the smallest pebble from the bracelets or heavy belt he wore at all times.

Life was short. He understood and embraced the simplicity of his role: lead and manage his Fists, protect his family’s territory, defend No Peak from its enemies. Enjoy himself along the way.

True love, Hilo mused, was sensual and euphoric, but also painful and tyrannical, demanding obedience. It was clearly altogether different from the rebellious infatuation Shae had had for that Espenian, or the sensible affection that had existed between Lan and Eyni.

He had come to her, all smiles and brotherly warmth, and when Hilo put himself forward freely, he expected the same of others. Meeting him less than halfway was risky. When he spoke again, his voice was more measured.

The bath was half full, the water pink with blood. Anden’s ma looked up at him, her expression blank and confused, and he saw that she held a cheese grater in her hand. The skin of her forearms was shredded, the flesh exposed like ground beef. After a moment that felt as if it would never end, she offered him a small, sheepish smile. “I couldn’t sleep; I was too itchy. Go back to bed, my little.”

Boat Day is a holiday centered on bribing the petulant typhoon god, Yofo, with enough destruction to satisfy him for the coming year and forestall any Earth Scourers—the

An hour after her father’s death, Mada killed the longtime Horn of the clan. This was followed immediately by the murder of three other rivals, all of them among the Spear’s closest friends and advisors. The Green Bone community was stunned—not by the fact that she’d done it, but that she’d done it so quickly and publicly, before her own father’s funeral.

“but surely the KJA is an example that our two clans are capable of existing in partnership. Any future mining and export decisions will have to be made jointly between us and the Mountain. It seems premature to worry about them now.” Lan glanced at the Weather Man in mild surprise. He would not personally have held up the Kekon Jade Alliance as a shining example of clan partnership. The tiers of accountability and stakeholder voting requirements seemed to ensure that no KJA decisions were ever made in less than six months. “You obviously have a more optimistic view of the KJA than I do,” Lan replied. “But there are other reasons not to get involved.”

When Bero called out to him, Sampa ignored him. In retaliation, Bero slashed Sampa’s tires and the boy missed his deliveries one day and lost his job.

Somehow, she kept her poise, smiled benignly, and strode down the street without hurrying, as if she’d meant to make a fool of herself all along.

Literally me

Woon Papidonwa,

“Gold and jade” was a Kekonese idiom that referred to greed and excess. An inappropriate level of overreach. A person hoping for too much good fortune might be warned, “Don’t ask for gold and jade.” A child who demanded a custard tart after already having had a sweet bun was, Lan knew from personal experience, likely to be scolded, “You want gold and jade together!”

Nearly all the councilmen and their staff in Wisdom Hall were affiliated with one of the Green Bone clans; the council treasurer, in the office down the hall from Son, was a well-known Mountain loyalist.

One day Shae was searching for something, she could not even remember what, when she stumbled upon a manila envelope full of photographs in Doru’s desk. Pretty Paya, in her underwear, Paya on her hands and knees, wearing a dog collar, Paya naked, legs spread, pale and awkward looking, eyes moist.

He wondered if this made him unusual among Green Bones. Hilo, after all, studded jade into his body so it could never be removed. Shae had gone too far in the other direction.

Armpit was one of Janloon’s most valuable districts. By day it attracted tourists and shoppers; after dark, both stockbrokers and dockworkers mingled in its streets, entertaining themselves with the myriad of restaurants, gambling dens, bars, strip clubs, and theaters.

under immense layers of concrete, were lead-lined vaults of processed jade, cut into various sizes from single-gram gems to one-tonne slabs. Considering that it housed in its bowels a stockpile that comprised a considerable portion of the nation’s fortune, the Kekon Treasury was less heavily guarded than one might expect, not only because anyone who attempted to steal from it would be marked for certain death by every Green Bone clan, but because state-of-the-art security systems ensured that if any vault was breached, the intruder would be sealed inside. Unless the thieves possessed complete immunity, being locked in a vault full of jade meant a slow, agonizing descent into insanity before death.

when sun and cloud grappled with each other in the sky, and the waiting men were bathed in alternating patches of heat and shadow, as if the weather itself was unsure of how the day would proceed.

In a burst of clarity, he knew the jade was doing this: setting him on edge, skewing his emotions. He’d been taught the early warning signs of jade overexposure since he was a child—every Green Bone had. Severe mood swings, sensory distortion, shaking, sweating, fever, a racing heart, anxiety and paranoia.

He was a Green Bone, with a short goatee, jade bolts through his ears, and a jade ring in his nose. He wore a long forest green rain slicker over dark clothes and boots. He looked Bero and Cheeky over with mild interest, the hollows of his eyes shadowed.

food. At times like this, there was peace on the streets. The clans tended to the people of their own territories and helped their Lantern Men to clean up and rebuild. In disputed or neutral areas, the clans worked alongside each other in unspoken temporary truce.

While all Kekonese revere Jenshu as the One Who Returned, only Green Bones consider themselves close enough to his legacy to refer to him simply as “Old Uncle.”

Upon Jenshu’s ascendance, the gods further proclaimed that when the rest of humankind followed Jenshu’s example and achieved the four Divine Virtues of humility, compassion, courage, and goodness, then they, too, would be welcomed back to godliness. All Deitists believe in this final promised occurrence, which they call the Return.

It had been years since Shae had last fought to kill. For a few minutes on the drive over here, she’d wondered if she still had the skills, the reflexes, the instinct for it, or if two and a half years of jadelessness and peaceable Espenian life had ruined her. So she was almost surprised when she cut the first man down in a few seconds.

In the end Shae landed a crushing stomp kick to the woman’s kneecap. As her opponent buckled forward in agony, Shae dropped her elbow down on the back of the Fist’s head with all the Strength she could summon, caving in the skull.

There had never been a Pillar under the age of thirty. Hilo was barely older than she; he’d been the youngest Horn in memory. There he sat, blood-spattered and reeking of fire smoke, eating a bowl of cereal after having led a massacre. His aura had the sharp edge of new jade he’d taken. Shae reeled. This will be the end, she thought. This will be the end of the No Peak clan.

“You dumb fuck,” Mudt spat. “No one told you to kill Kaul. You were supposed to shoot up the Lilac Divine and drive away. Give Kaul a scare in his own territory, ruin his car and one of his favorite businesses, piss him off, not kill him. The idea that you two half-wits could kill a Green Bone like Kaul Lan…” Mudt gave a derisive snorting laugh. Soberly, “We’re fucked.”

Hilo will understand. Be my right hand, as you were my brother’s. Will you do this, Woon-jen?” Woon’s eyes brimmed, and he nodded with his face lowered. “Yes. It’s what Lan-jen would’ve wanted me to do,” he said simply.

“I’ve forgotten the past. When you push me like you do, sometimes I forget that I’ve forgotten it. I won’t bring it up again. It’s over.

the year-eights stood behind a table in the packed Gathering Hall and each was given a cage of five white lab mice. They were not allowed to touch the mice with anything but one finger, and the judges disqualified anyone trying to cheat by using Strength or Deflection on the small creatures. Various attempts had been made over the years to try to upgrade the popular event to be more exciting—who didn’t want to see a man try to Channel into a bull? For practical and budgetary reasons, the proposals were always overruled.

are like horses, Andy. Fingers and Fists too—everyone. Any old horse will run when it’s whipped, but only fast enough to avoid the whipping,” Hilo said. “Racehorses, though, they run because they look at the horse on their left, they look at the one on their right, and they think, No way am I second to these fuckers.”

“You never forget your first stones—the first six or so. You remember the day you got each one, how you got it, what it felt like, everything.

he’d refused Son’s request that he break up the workers’ strike on the Docks by force, and at Lan’s funeral, the man had shown only the minimum of respect to the new Pillar. The fact that Hilo had now ignored him for several weeks while he concentrated on the war could only have exacerbated the man’s dislike.

His mother had loved Lan; his grandfather had loved Shae. Hilo had found his place in the world among peers—that was where his expressiveness and daring were valued.