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“Sometimes I think liars are almost as bad as thieves,” he said through a tight jaw. “They steal away trust, something that can’t be returned.”
She was the softest and most vulnerable creature; she was the strongest and most unyielding of his warriors.
“Sister Shae, when is life ever like a story where the characters get exactly what they deserve, good or bad?
“Don’t show off how much you hate a man until you’re ready to be his enemy,”
“I was angry at you for a long time after you refused to wear jade. Of course you remember. Now, though… I’m thankful you’re not a Fist, Andy. I need—” Hilo’s voice faltered. “I need one of my brothers to live.”
You’d think it would be easier to face death as you get older, but it doesn’t work that way. You get more attached to life, to people you love and things that are worth living for.”
Jade had meaning because of the type of person one had to become to wear it. Jade was the visible proof that a person had dedicated their life to the discipline of wielding power, to the dangers and costs of being a Green Bone.
She did not require proof anymore. She was past needing to carry her green as a coveted mark of status and credibility, one that declared to everyone that she was equal to her brothers and worthy of being a Kaul. She had two decades on the top floor of Ship Street to do that for her.
Why not escape reality, when it was so unbearably cruel to wives and sisters and mothers?
If the clans stop defining the meaning of jade, then others will take that power from us. They’ll amplify all the worst parts and preserve none of the good.”
“How do we do it?” Hilo sighed deeply. “You of all people already know the answer to that, Shae. We don’t handle this world. We make it handle us.”
The way to defeat a chess master was not with greater genius, but by forcing her to play a different game.
