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“There’s talk about a dead body being found in the cemetery last night.” Hilo’s mouth curved. “Only one? Did the others get up and leave?”
“You should eat more,” Lan said, when he saw that she hadn’t finished the food in her bowl. “You have a long, tiring trip ahead of you, and then you’ll be alone in a foreign country.” “I won’t be alone,” Shae countered. “I’ll be with Jerald.” Lan looked at her compassionately. “We’re always alone with our own decisions.”
“Enough,” Shae declared, loudly enough to disrupt Ayt midsentence and be heard by those nearby. There was a ripple of astonishment through the crowd, and in the space where Ayt’s searing aura met Shae’s like lava pouring against rocks. Shae continued advancing, implacably, cold as the moon. “You’ve insulted and slandered me enough. You’ve called me a poor granddaughter, an unfit Weather Man, unworthy of jade, a traitor, and a whore.” She stopped; the heartbeat of silence that fell was blistering. “Ayt Madashi, Pillar of the Mountain, I offer you a clean blade.”
SO HYPE
Not even the Pillar could reverse a challenge between two willing parties once it was issued and accepted, but from the explosive roar of his jade aura Shae thought Hilo might try to kill her himself before Ayt got around to it. In the Duchesse after escaping the ensuing hubbub, he’d struggled to find words. “What the fuck, Shae?” he shouted.
You picked a path that you can’t turn away from. You have to follow it all the way now, or I’ll push you off.”
Wen thought that even though Anden was not a Kaul by blood, in that moment, he looked more like Lan than either Hilo or Shae ever did.
“I’m a rich man, a powerful man,” he wheezed. “I can pay more than whatever you’ve been offered. Who sent you?” “I sent myself,” Wen told him, “from the Kaul family of No Peak.” She pulled the trigger.
WEN IS THE BEST CHARACTER
Wen spat at Reams’s feet. She straightened and spoke in Kekonese. “The clan is my blood, and the Pillar is its master.”
WEN IS THE BEST CHARACTER (again)
“How could you?” Hilo might have whispered the words; he might have screamed them—Shae was not sure. She could only feel the force with which they landed, harder than his fists. “How could you?”
:(
Shae lowered herself to the ground next to her brother and rested her bruised back against the splintered cabinet. “Hate me from now on if you have to, but you need me to stay, Hilo. And you need Wen and Anden. You said it yourself years ago: We have each other, and maybe that’s the one thing we have that our enemies don’t.” Hilo’s aura gave a dark pulse, like an angry sigh, but he didn’t move or open his eyes. Shae slumped back and closed her own eyes. “The clan is my blood and the Pillar is its master,” she whispered. “I have a lot of regrets in life, but those oaths aren’t one of them.”
They really are some of the best written siblings I’ve ever read
