Archive of Our Own

Lan had enough problems. He had way more than enough problems. Between the impending war, his reckless Horn, his likely traitor Weather Man and his health issues, he really had enough on. The last thing he needed was a call from Kaul Du Academy asking if he’d forgotten to phone in an absence for Anden.

It was with the memory of what had happened on Boat Day making his mouth bitter with panic that he went to call Hilo. The Horn might have heard something and if he hadn’t Lan knew he’d be willing to rip the city apart until their cousin was found.

Then it got worse.

Just as he was dialing, Woon came in an admitted that he’d had a strange phone call from Anden on No Peak’s public relations line. The boy had been asking for the address of Hilo’s command post. He’d said that he wanted to ask Hilo a question about the Trials, but Anden called the house’s private phone meant for family and friends all the time and the fact that he hadn’t this morning implied that he had wanted to make sure none of the family would answer. That put his claim to want to ask an innocent question about school into doubt.

Lan called Hilo but the Horn hadn’t heard anything from Anden. He was understandably worried and said he’d send out men to look for him and get in contact with his spies in Mountain territory to see if they’d heard anything. When they hung up, Lan was left where he’d been the last time Anden had been snatched by the Mountain; waiting by the phone hoping his younger brother didn’t freak out and do something irreparable.

Less than twenty minutes after he’d spoken with Hilo, the phone in his office rang. He snatched it up immediately. “Yes?”

“Kaul-jen, this is Maik Kehn,” the man on the other end said. “I have good news. Your cousin turned up at the Horn’s command post asking to talk to Hilo-jen. He said that he’d lied to Woon-jen about what he wanted and that he was actually looking to talk to Hilo-jen about something else. He said that it needed to be alone. Hilo-jen’s driving him back to the Academy now so they can talk.”

Lan’s blood ran cold. No, it couldn’t be. Anden was a good kid, an honest kid. He had always kept his word. Anden had never ignored a request Lan had made of him. He’d never break a promise Lan had asked of him. He would not tell Hilo about the shine.

His more cynical side took over. Of course, Anden would tell Hilo. Lan had seen the look of disgust and horror on the boy’s face when he’d found the shine. He should never have trusted him.

Rage, hot and unfamiliar, boiled in Lan’s stomach. “Tell Hilo that Anden doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” he said. Anger and panic made his voice sound strange even to himself.

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. “Excuse me, Kaul-jen?” Maik Kehn asked.

The hesitation only made Lan angrier. Surely if Hilo had said something like that to his First Fist he wouldn’t have been questioned. “You heard me,” Lan said harshly. “Anden’s imagination is running away with him and making him think he knows things that just aren’t true. Hilo shouldn’t believe a thing he says. Tell Hilo I said that.”

Another pause. “Yes, Kaul-jen,” Maik Kehn said, still sounding dubious. “Of course, Kaul-jen.”

“Thank you for deciding to obey your Pillar,” Lan snapped and hung up.

~~~~

Lan spent the next hour or so pacing his office, alternating between anger at Anden’s betrayal and panic at trying to figure out what Hilo would do. He was no closer to resolving either emotion when Kyanla tapped on his office door. “Lan-jen, Hilo just arrived,” she called. “He says he needs to talk to you right away.”

Lan’s stomach sank. He took a breath, crossed the room, opened the office door and forced his voice to be pleasant, “Thank you, Kyanla.”

Hilo was waiting in the kitchen, dressed for the streets with his moon blade on his back and his talon knife at his hip. If Lan had harbored any hope that Anden had wanted to talk to Hilo for any reason other than to betray his promise to Lan, those hopes were dashed by the look on his brother’s face. Hilo was looking at Lan like he didn’t know him. Lan didn’t think he’d ever seen Hilo look so serious. It made him look a decade older and inexplicably like Grandda, which was a comparison Lan was sure his brother wouldn’t appreciate.

“Is something wrong?” Lan asked, reaching for normalcy. “Maik Kehn said that you’d found Anden.”

Hilo ignored his words entirely. “Let’s go for a drive, Lan,” he said.

Lan feigned confusion. “Why?” he asked.

“Because I don’t want to have this conversation when Grandda might walk in on us at any moment,” Hilo said. “And I don’t think you want to either.”

Well, there was nothing to say to that. Hilo was right that the only thing Lan wanted less than to have this conversation with Hilo was to have it with Grandda. “I’ll need to tell Woon I’m going out,” he said by way of agreement.

“Fine,” Hilo’s expressions and his words weren’t matching up and the effect was uncomfortable, Lan turned away so he didn’t have to look at it anymore.

Woon was in the Pillarman’s office with one of his underlings and the two Fingers who served as Lan’s bodyguards. When the Fingers heard that Lan was leaving the Estate they started to rise and gather their weapons.

“It won’t be necessary for you two to come along,” Hilo said from the office doorway. “He’s going to be with me.”

“But, Hilo-jen—” one of the Fingers began to protest. “Our orders were to—”

“And who gave you those orders?” Hilo asked in a stern tone that was entirely unlike him. “Like I said, he’s going to be with me. You think that I can’t play bodyguard just as well as you can?”

Lan thought about pointing out that to his understanding the Maik brothers had been playing bodyguard to Hilo since the Mountain’s attempt on his life, but the Fingers were already ducking their heads and saluting in abashed obedience. “Yes, Hilo-jen. Of course, Hilo-jen.”

Hilo simply turned to Lan without any further acknowledgment of his Fingers. They drooped visibly, no doubt thinking they’d done something to displease him. “Let’s go,” he said.

~~~~

They took the Duchesse, obviously. The atmosphere was entirely different than the last time Lan had ridden in the car, which was impressive because it hadn’t been particularly jovial after the duel with Gam either. At first, he had no idea where Hilo was taking them, but then he started seeing signs for the Reservoir overlook and realized that must be where they were going. He almost asked why they were going there but the expression on Hilo’s face stopped him.

Hilo pulled into the parking lot of the overlook, turned off the car and got out. “Come on,” he told Lan. His voice was clipped and distracted. The kind of voice you’d use on someone far subordinate to you or on a small child you found troublesome to deal with. “Let’s walk.”

Lan blinked. Hilo had never spoken to him that way. There had perhaps been points of their lives when he’d spoken to Lan like they were far closer than they actually were, but he’d never spoken to Lan like he thought he had any right to expect his older brother to obey him. Lan opened his mouth, ready to object to being spoken to that way.

“Lan,” Hilo said in a more normal tone, turning to look back into the car, his forearms braced on the doorframe. “Let’s walk. There are tourists here.”

Lan looked around and there were indeed a collection of Espenian tourists flocked on the overlook taking photos and chattering together in Espenian. That was perhaps unsurprising given the overlook was a tourist trap natives of Janloon generally had no interest in. Some of the Espenians had looked over at them, but it appeared that was more because they were admiring the Duchesse than because any of them knew whose car it had to be. Still having the coming conversation in front of them would be almost as bad as having it in the vicinity of Grandda. He got out of the car. 

Hilo shut his door and tugged on the handle to make sure it was locked and strode off towards one of the trails surrounding the lookout point with his hands stuffed deep into his pockets. Lan closed his door and followed. Several of the Espenian tourists shouted things to them. Lan’s Espenian wasn’t anywhere near as good as Shae’s was, but he was pretty sure they were saying something about Hilo’s car or perhaps the fact that he was openly carrying his moon blade. Lan jogged to catch up with his brother, feeling like a small child. Hilo was rolling his eyes. “Fucking Espenians,” he growled though Lan was fairly sure Hilo didn’t have any Espenian and therefore probably had no idea what the tourists were saying.

They reached the trail and were engulfed by the forest. Hilo was walking fast with his head down. Lan finally managed to fall into step beside him. Neither of them said anything for quite a while.

Finally Hilo took a bracing breath. “You know, your big mistake was telling Kehn to tell me that Andy didn’t know what he was talking about,” he said still without looking at Lan. “The story that Andy came to tell me seemed so outrageously unlike you that at first I thought he must be misunderstanding something somewhere. It wasn’t until Kehn told me what you’d said that I actually believed it. If you just hadn’t said anything until I asked you about it, I’d probably have just let you tell me a comforting lie for my own peace of mind.”

Frustration boiled in his stomach and he told himself it was at Anden not his own handling of the situation. “And as a result I don’t get the chance to give my side of the story?”

“What do you think this conversation is?” Hilo asked and then went on before Lan could say, “An unnecessary intervention,” “How long has this been going on? Are you high on that shit now?”

Lan gritted his teeth. “Do I seem high to you right now?” he tried to keep his voice even but it came out as a growl anyway.

“I’m not sure I’d be able to tell,” Hilo said with more honesty than Lan had expected. “I can’t say that I’ve ever interacted with a real Green Bone who I knew for sure was on shine. Plus I’m not sure I’ve ever even seen you drunk.”

That wasn’t true, but Lan supposed the last time that had happened had been before Grandda had begun grooming him to be Pillar when Hilo was still fairly young and he hadn’t been so far gone that he couldn’t hide it from his younger brother.

“It’s been more than a week since I last took a dose,” Lan said. “It’s not… I’m injured. It’s a temporary measure as I need it until I recover.”

“But Dr. Truw doesn’t know that you’re taking it,” Hilo said. It took Lan a moment to realize that wasn’t a question.

“What did you say to him?” he demanded.

“I didn’t tell him anything,” Hilo said. “I’m not a fool. I know that this needs to be handled quietly. I just called him and asked some questions. Said I had some concerns about your health. I needed to figure out whether he’d prescribed it or not. Again, we’d be having a very different conversation if he’d prescribed it.” A pause. “For the record, he was horrified when I floated the idea of SN1 by him. He was adamant what you need is rest and to wear less jade for a while.”

“That’s not possible,” Lan said.

“Why’s it not possible?” Hilo asked, a bit obtusely in Lan’s opinion.

“The imminent clan war that you’ve been going on about for months?” Lan raised his eyebrows. “The clan can’t afford to seem weak right now. Which means that I can’t afford to seem weak.”

 “You seem to think we’re in a weaker position in regards to the Mountain than we actually are,” Hilo said. “If you’d been physically injured in the duel with Gam and Dr. Truw said you needed to remove some of your jade until you were fully recovered we’d have dealt with it. We’ll deal with this too.”

One of the most frustrating things about Hilo, Lan mused, was that he always thought things would work out the way he thought they should. “This isn’t the same thing at all,” he said. “There’s no obvious injury. People would have to take my word for it that I’m injured and not just not green enough to wear Gam’s jade. We both know no one will believe it.”

“So this whole thing is still about that bullshit,” Hilo exclaimed. “Lan, you’re the fucking Pillar not an egotistical Fist who doesn’t want to admit they’ve reached the edge of their jade tolerance. You know what we do to Green Bones like that on the military side of the clan? We give them a chance to admit that they’re carrying too much jade and keep their position in exchange for stripping down to a level they can handle. If they refuse we hold them down and strip them ourselves and throw them out of the military side of the clan. Do you want me to do that to you, Lan? There’s no place for Green Bones who are green turning black in important positions in the clan. It’s too dangerous. Have you ever seen a heavily jaded Fist succumb to the Itches, Lan? Because I have.”  

“Which one of us did Anden call when he found his mother?” Lan pointed out, even though Aun Ure had been a long-retired assassin not a Fist. “And I’m not going to get the Itches. That’s what the SN1 is for.”

“And what are we going to do when you inevitably overdose on it and someone finds out?” Hilo said. “Because to my understanding it really is a near inevitability that you’re going to overdose at some point because it’s that easy to do. You think it’d be impossible to convince anyone you’re legitimately injured now? Try doing it when the whole city knows you’ve been taking shine.”

Hilo was probably right, which only made him feel more defensive. Anger was growing in his stomach again. How dare his little brother speak to him this way?

“You aren’t listening,” he growled. “No one will ever respect me as Pillar if I can’t wear Gam’s jade.”

 “So then we make them,” Hilo said like that was the easiest thing in the world. “I’m still waiting for the final results on the investigation into Doru, but based on what I’ve seen so far I’m 90% sure he’s a traitor. So you execute him as publicly as possible so everyone knows that you’re green enough to mete out punishment for betrayal even amongst longtime members of the family. Then you let me strike a blow against the Mountain to teach them that we won’t tolerate them messing with us anymore. We don’t need to worry about the loyalty of the Fists and Fingers. I know they’ll stay the course.”

He knew he shouldn’t say it but he couldn’t stop himself, “Because they’re all more loyal to you than they are to me.”

Hilo stopped walking. When Lan stopped and turned to face him, the Horn looked genuinely confused. “Of course they’re loyal to me too,” he said. “Fists and Fingers don’t agree to risk their lives for someone they don’t think will value their sacrifice.”

“No, it’s not just that,” Lan said. He was as angry as he’d been in the training room with Anden now, so angry it was hard to think. How dare Hilo stand there spouting these stupid, stupid things. Hilo might have had the kind of charmed life that made him think things would always work out, but Lan had not. It was way past time that Hilo learned that just because things had always been easy for him didn’t mean they always would be.

“The clan’s Fists and Fingers are your personal friends,” Lan said, he tried to take on the calm and reasonable tone he used to talk to recalcitrant Councilmen and Lantern Men but his voice came out shaking slightly with barely suppressed rage. “Don’t try to deny it. That’s why they all follow you even though you’re younger than a notable portion of them. That and the fact that you’re one of the most heavily jaded people in the clan and wear your jade as lightly as if you wore none at all. It’s all so clever and I can’t tell if it was all a strategy or if you just stumbled into it because your ego can’t handle it when the people around you don’t worship the ground you walk on.”

Hilo was staring at him with his mouth slightly open. The color had been steadily and fascinatingly draining from his face as Lan spoke. “Lan—” he began. “I don’t—”

Lan plowed over him. All the free-floating anxiety and frustration he’d been feeling was now squarely focused on his younger brother. He was not done. “You’re not worried about leading your men on an attack on the Mountain because they all know that’s what you’ve wanted to do for ages. What if I give orders that you don’t want to follow? What happens then? What happens when your men decide that I’m weak and that you’d be a better Pillar? Could you stop them if they decided to depose me and put you in my place?” he paused and then landed the final blow, “Would you want to stop them?”

Hilo’s Deflection hit him squarely in the stomach. It was not a weak Deflection and it took him by surprise, knocking him clean off his feet and onto the ground. Hilo didn’t give him time to recover. He stepped in close and held Lan down with Strength while he tugged at the buckles of Lan’s belt and cuffs. Lan tried to shove him off but he couldn’t correctly summon his own Strength. Ironically, given the topic of this conversation, he probably needed a dose of shine.

“You really think that poorly of me?” Hilo growled. He didn’t look up from fighting with Lan’s jade. “You really think I would ever do something like that?”

 The insane rage that had been driving Lan was ebbing and leaving horror in its place. What had he just said? He didn’t actually think those things about his brother, so why had he said them? He wanted to say that he knew Hilo would never betray him, but he had a feeling there was nothing he could say that would make this better now. He was looking up into Hilo’s face and there were tears gathering in his brother’s eyes. The horrible thing was that while he didn’t actually believe anything he’d just said, he had meant it in the sense that he’d known it would hurt Hilo and he’d wanted to hurt Hilo. For all his ferocity as a warrior, his little brother was open-hearted and incredibly easy to hurt, especially when the person doing the hurting was someone he deeply cared about.

He’d just destroyed his relationship with Hilo, Lan realized. Family meant everything to Hilo and he’d view the accusations Lan had just thrown at him as the ultimate slap in the face. He might forgive Lan for this someday in the far future, but that wouldn’t make it go away or erase the memory of it. Lan and Hilo’s relationship would revolve around this moment for the rest of their lives.

Hilo succeeded in getting the buckles of Lan’s belt and cuffs loose and stood, holding Lan down with a shallow Deflection. Lan gasped and shuddered as the belt and cuffs and all the jade they contained were ripped away from him. When his vision cleared, Hilo was standing a few paces back, holding the jade in both hands. Tears were running openly down his cheeks now though he didn’t seem to notice them. Especially galling was the fact that he didn’t appear to be having any kind of reaction to holding most of Lan’s jade, either positive or negative.

“Fuck you,” Hilo said, his lips peeling off his teeth in an ugly snarl. “Fuck you and this whole fucking family.”

Then he turned on his heal and walked away without a backwards glance, taking Lan’s jade with him.

~~~~

Lan lay on the trail for what felt like ages. He half expected Hilo to cool off and come back—he had promised Lan’s bodyguards that he’d be with him for starters—but as time went on and his brother showed no signs of reappearing Lan had to admit that Hilo wasn’t going to be coming back. He might have done that for a stupid fight when they’d both been younger, but not for something like this. He suddenly remembered how Hilo had refused to even acknowledge that Shae existed for six months after she’d left for Espenia. And if his brother had that reaction to him now he wasn’t even sure he could blame him.

He was just contemplating getting up and walking back to the shelter on the overlook to call a cab—Hilo might have taken most of his jade but he hadn’t taken his wallet—when footsteps sounded on the gravel, breaking into a run when whoever it was saw Lan.

“Lan-jen,” Woon gasped, dropping to his knees next to him. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Lan said though that was debatable. He propped himself up on his elbows. Already his body felt heavy from jade withdrawal. “What are you doing here?”

“Hilo-jen called me and said that I should come here and pick you up,” Woon explained. He was looking Lan over, tugging at Lan’s clothes to check for unseen injuries. “Where is he? Wasn’t he supposed to be with you? And where is the rest of your—” Woon broke off and Lan watched the realization of what must have happened dawn on his closest friend’s face like a horrible sunrise. “Lan-jen?” he asked.

Lan sighed. There was no point in trying to hide it, he supposed. “Woon,” he said. “I just said something awful to Hilo.”

~~~~

Hilo’s plan had been to drive back to his command post. There were things that needed to be done, like checking in on Tar and getting the final results of their research into Doru’s loyalties. However, he’d only driven about five minutes before it became obvious that wasn’t going to happen. His eyes were welling up with tears to the extent that he could barely see the road.

A small, unpaved road turned off and he followed it until the white Duchesse couldn’t be seen from the main road. Then he pulled over and killed the engine. He pressed his forehead into the steering wheel, wrapped his arms around his head and sobbed.

Hilo considered himself to be both in touch with and comfortable with his own emotions, especially in comparison with the rest of his family, but he still couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried, let alone this hard. His whole body shook and he couldn’t breathe. This was far and away the worst day he’d ever had.

He wasn’t sure how long he cried, but eventually there was a pause. He toppled sideways and lay on his back, staring up at the roof of the Duchesse. After a moment, he shifted enough to pull out his pack of cigarettes and lit up.

He lay there as he smoked. Lan’s belt and cuffs were in the footwell near his head, where they’d slid off the passenger seat when he’d tossed them into the car. He could feel all the jade studded into them not in the way he remembered feeling large amounts of jade when he’d been younger and not heavily jaded himself, but in a subconscious way where he kept looking towards them even though the last thing he wanted to do was look at the jade he’d had to confiscate from his older brother. There’d been a bit of a rush when he’d handled it to take it off Lan and during the walk back to the Duchesse. Not much of one, but it had been so long since he’d last felt a jade rush that there had been a part of him that enjoyed it anyway. He hated that part of himself. It was one more gross and awful thing to top off this gross and awful day.

There is a difference between fearing that a thing is true and knowing that it is true. Hilo had feared that his family didn’t return his love and affection for as long as he could remember. This was perhaps unsurprising since he’d grown up with a grandfather who was constantly belittling and insulting him, a younger sister who seemed to hate him and think their relationship began and ended with her quest to prove to everyone that she was better than he was, an older brother who kept his own counsel in all things, an adoptive cousin who never seemed quite able to grasp that he was really part of the family and a mother and grandmother who were loath to display any strong emotion in case they made a scene. This fear had caused much adolescent angst when he’d been at Kaul Du Academy and he remembered his distress about the situation and his attempts to relieve it through the near-constant companionship of the various shallow friendships he’d made with the cringe-worthy embarrassment that often accompanies memories of one’s teenage tribulations.

Things had gotten better in the long run. He’d met the Maiks, embarked on his romance with Tar—a relationship he considered one of his two great love affairs—graduated the Academy and become a Finger and then a Fist and then the Horn. He’d won the love of the Green Bones who followed him and then he’d started dating Wen and been gifted her love as well—the irony of the fact that both his great love affairs had been with Maiks did not escape him. He felt much less starved for affection than he had as a teenager and that made answering the question of whether his family truly cared for him seem less urgent. The fear had never truly left but it had become like mild seasonal allergies; a nuisance that he might forget about entirely until it was irritated.  

But now he knew. He knew for sure and the knowing was terrible. It was so terrible that he kept shying away from it. He must have misunderstood or misheard or imagined it. Surely this couldn’t be reality. Surely Lan couldn’t believe that Hilo would ever try to usurp him. Surely Lan must know that Hilo adored him and respected him and had always, always looked up to him. Surely Lan knew that Hilo would never, ever want to be Pillar and that he’d never tolerate anyone suggesting that he’d be better at the job than Lan was.

Only apparently Lan didn’t know any of those things. Hilo wasn’t sure how that was possible. He’d always thought the issue was that he showed his family all the love and affection expected from family while they selfishly refused to reciprocate. Now he had to consider the possibility that he’d gone wrong somewhere as well, that all of it—Lan, Shae, Andy, Grandda, all of it—was his fault somehow.

Kaul Hilo had no practice in reordering his entire worldview. Things had always worked out about how he thought they should. Now he howled in wordless rage and pounded his fist on the Duchesse’s seat to ease the urge to beat his head against the dashboard until he could stop thinking about it.

When the rage ebbed, he cried helplessly again for a while and when the tears dried up he lit another cigarette. He was calm now, albeit the eerie calm that came because emotions took energy and you had already worn yourself out. He felt like was thinking a bit more clearly, though.

It felt like something massive should have changed, like the whole geography of his life should have changed along with the geography of his relationships with his family, but that hadn’t actually happened. He was still the Horn of No Peak until Lan said otherwise, and the fact that he had no idea if Lan was likely to say otherwise didn’t mean that he could shirk from his duty to defend the clan from its ever more audacious enemies.

He was going to need to find a way to transfer some of the Fists and Fingers’ loyalty from him to Lan, he realized. That was going to be some trick since Lan really was about to become incredibly visibly weak. Hilo realized that whatever he managed to do to handle this issue and prove the sincerity of his devotion to Lan would probably dismantle the support system the greener side of the clan offered him, right when he’d need them to emotionally survive what had happened today. That realization almost proved him wrong about being too exhausted for further tears.

He took a few deep breaths and lit another cigarette and managed to hold off the possibility of tears. He needed to get moving. There was Doru to deal with, the encroaching clan war and the fact that he was going to have to figure out how to change the locks on the doors to the family jade stores to something only he knew the combination for to keep Lan from just taking more jade to replace the stuff Hilo had confiscated. He hated the fact that he had to be considering these things. He hated everything about this.

He tried to sit up but putting his hands on the steering wheel and thinking about having to move on in the face of this made his chest tighten up until he couldn’t breathe. He lay back down again and lit another cigarette. And then another when that one was gone and then a third. He’d get up and handle the situation once he finished this cigarette, he promised himself. As soon as he finished this cigarette…

~~~~

He ended up finishing off his pack of cigarettes and it was only after that that he managed to push himself to start moving.

First, he returned to the overlook. There was no sign of Lan’s car but he’d been laying in the Duchesse on that side road for hours so Woon would have had plenty of time to drive up here and take Lan home. He called the house on the payphone again and thanked all the gods he didn’t believe in that Kyanla answered. If Lan had answered the odds that he’d have freaked out and hung up without saying a word were far too high for his liking.

“Did Lan and Woon get home alright?” he asked, even saying Lan’s name sent his stomach into a flurry of knots and backflips.

“Yes, a few hours ago,” Kyanla said. “Lan-jen said that he wasn’t feeling well. He’s resting upstairs now. Are you alright, Hilo-se? You sound like you might be coming down with something. Your voice is hoarse.”

Hilo hadn’t even noticed the rasp in his voice from all the cigarettes he’d spent the last few hours smoking one after another. “I’m fine,” he assured her, trying to sound normal. “Listen, Kyanla, I need you to do me a huge favor…” He told Kyanla that there were concerns that the safes on the Estate might have been compromised and that she should call the lock company and have the locks changed that day. “When the work is done I want you not to look at the combinations and just give them to me. Don’t even mention that you had this done to Lan.”

There was a long pause. “Or course, Hilo-se,” Kyanla said in a tone of voice that told Hilo that she’d probably worked out the real reason Hilo was asking her to have the safe locks changed. She must have noticed that Lan hadn’t been wearing most of his jade when he’d returned to the house. “Is there anything else you’d like me to do?”

“That’s all,” Hilo said. “And, Kyanla…” he didn’t want to say this next part but it needed to be said, “If Lan is cruel to you at any point, even in passing, tell me, okay? I’ll handle it.” He had no idea how he’d handle it but despite everything he knew that the Lan who’d lashed out at him on the trail had not been stable and that until Lan got through the withdrawal it stood to reason Kyanla might also come into the Pillar’s line of fire if she accidently annoyed him and she didn’t deserve that.

Another pause. No quite as long, but long enough that Hilo had no doubts now that Kyanla had put the truth of the situation together. “I will, Hilo-jen,” she said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Hilo said. “Do you have a pad of paper handy? I’ll give you a phone number to call me at when the locksmith has been and left.”

~~~~

After he got off the phone with Kyanla, Hilo finally drove back to his command post. It was now late afternoon. What he had hoped to be a short trip to the Academy and back had turned into an all-day affair. He needed to call Andy too and tell him how things had gone, he realized. He had no idea what he’d say.

He parked the Duchesse under its awning behind the command post and started to get out before he saw Lan’s jade still lying in the footwell. He should have driven home and locked it in the safe in the Horn’s house, but the idea of going back to the Estate or really anywhere near Lan ever again made him feel like he couldn’t breathe. However he also couldn’t very well walk into the command post carrying the Pillar’s jade. Eventually he shoved the jade into his glovebox for lack of a better idea. He’d have some Fingers stand guard over the car for the rest of the day. Maybe after that he could stop by Kehn and Tar’s and put Lan’s jade in their safe.

He tested the Duchesse’s doors to be sure they were locked, then stuffed his hands into his pants pockets and hurried towards the door to the command center. The Finger standing guard outside straightened at the sight of him and then did a double take when she looked at him more closely, her aura turning confused. “Hilo-jen?” she began. “Are you—”

“Fine,” Hilo said shortly, brushing by her and taking the stairs two at a time.

Kehn was the only one in the command center and he looked up when Hilo came in. “Did something happen?” he asked. “You’ve been gone for hours.”

“What’s been going on while I was gone?” Hilo asked, ignoring Kehn’s question.

“You sound awful,” Kehn said by way of answer.

Hilo waved him off. “I’m fine. Can you bum me a cigarette?” he rasped. The cheap menthol cigarettes Kehn smoked were vile but the cushion of calmness he’d gotten from finishing his pack was wearing off and he was getting desperate. “I’m out of mine.”

Kehn eyed him consideringly. “I think you’ve probably already had enough cigarettes today,” he said. “Unless you’ve got another explanation for how you’ve managed to almost completely lose your voice since I last talked to you.”

It took the refusal a moment to sink in. Hilo stared at him and then suddenly and without really realizing he’d decided to do it, he whirled away from Kehn and kicked a chair over. The crashing sound it made felt nice so he kicked over another and then another. Kehn stood back, watching him have his tantrum and that took some of the wind out of his sails. He collapsed into one of the chairs that was still standing and rested his forehead on the tabletop, fighting the urge to cry again this time from shear frustration.

Kehn evidently decided he was done because he began moving around the room. After a few minutes he set something on the table before Hilo. “Here,” he said. “This will help your throat.” Hilo lifted his head a little and saw it was a glass of water. “And this,” Kehn put a cup of instant noodles next to the water and set a pair of chopsticks on top of it, “will help with the urge to break things.”

He thought about refusing but when Kehn took that particular tone of voice it was generally better to just do what he wanted. He reached for the glass of water.

Kehn sat next to him while he ate, getting up to refill the glass when Hilo emptied it. When Hilo was finished he didn’t feel good or normal he had to admit that he did feel a little more stable. It was mildly upsetting to realize that at least some of issue had been the fact that he hadn’t eaten.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Kehn asked.

Hilo shook his head, fiddling with his chopsticks. “Did Tar and Juen get the information we wanted on Doru?”

There was a brief pause while Kehn obviously debated pushing to figure out what had Hilo so upset. “Tar was here about two hours ago,” he finally relented. “The short of it is that Yun-jen’s taking money from the Mountain through secret accounts.”

“What’s the long of it?” he asked. Kehn told him and he thought for a moment, hands clasped before him. “It’s Fifthday, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Kehn nodded.

“Alright,” Hilo said. “Doru goes to a brothel in Coinwash every Fifthday. If we have men waiting when he comes out we can grab him and cart him off somewhere with minimal fuss.”

Kehn made a face. “Please tell me you’re thinking of a different brothel in Coinwash than I am.”

“Unfortunately, I really doubt that I am,” Hilo said. It was disturbing that Doru’s predilections were well known enough that Kehn had heard of them too. Then frowned himself as he considered the broader implications. “We can’t do this without the Pillar’s knowledge and approval, though. I’ll tell you what things that need to be discussed and then you can call him for me.”

Kehn eyed him. “Why aren’t you going to talk to him yourself?”

“That’s a bad idea right now,” Hilo admitted. If there was any way to put dealing with Doru off he would do it, but he’d just stripped the Pillar of No Peak of two thirds of his jade and this was no time for such a high-ranking member of clan leadership to be a traitor. No, they needed to deal with Doru today before he realized what was going on with Lan and could report it to Ayt Mada and Gont Asch.

Kehn studied Hilo for a moment and his hands made an aborted movement like he’d been about to pull out a cigarette and then remembered that he’d refused to give Hilo one. Hilo was pathetically thankful that at least Kehn wasn’t going to smoke in front of him.

“Alright, I’ll do it,” Kehn said. “Because I’m your friend and I care about you. What do you want me to tell him?”

Hilo suppressed a grimace. Under any other circumstances he’d have been touched, but now all he could think of was the things Lan had said. “I can’t tell if it was all a strategy or if you just stumbled into it because your ego can’t handle it when the people around you don’t worship the ground you walk on.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to focus. It was very, very difficult. “Okay,” he said to Kehn. “Basically, the things we need his approval on are…”

~~~~

The biggest issue presented by having Kehn talk to Lan, was what phone to call. The treason of the Weather Man could not be discussed on just any line. The family and clan phone lines were regularly searched for bugs but they were still possible, especially with Doru now a confirmed traitor. The only line Hilo was sure was safe to discuss something of this magnitude on was his private phone line for Lan, the one that only he and Lan knew the number for that he was never supposed to call save for things of utmost urgency. Obviously, he couldn’t give that number to Kehn but he also couldn’t let his First Fist have this conversation with Lan on any other line.

Eventually, he settled for the most straightforward answer to the problem and asked Kehn to turn around. Then he picked up the securest of the numerous phones in the room and dialed the number. When it was ringing he asked Kehn to turn back around and handed him the phone. 

Hilo watched Kehn as the phone rang. It was immediately obvious when Lan answered because of the way Kehn’s posture changed. “Kaul-jen,” he said. “This is Maik Kehn, again. I’m calling about the work we’ve been doing regarding the Weather Man.”

There was a pause while Lan spoke. “I don’t know this number,” Kehn said. “Hilo-jen made me turn my back while he dialed.”

Another pause. “Hilo-jen thought it would be best if I did the talking,” Kehn said. Maybe it was just because he was in the room, but Hilo appreciated how well Kehn hid his skepticism at being forced to play intermediary. “He—“ Lan interrupted and the change in Kehn’s expression told Hilo that his tone had changed as well. “Um. Yes, Kaul-jen,” he said.

Hilo found that after today he knew exactly what tone of voice Lan was using on Kehn right now. The memory of their fight boiled up from where it had been lying in wait just under the surface of his consciousness. His stomach flipped over and for a stretching instant he was sure he was going to throw up. He pushed himself back from the table in what he expected to be a mostly futile attempt at not being sick on the valuable maps and other things in the command center but then the moment was over and he was standing over the table shaking like a leaf in the fucking wind.

Kehn must have Perceived the whole thing because he touched Hilo’s arm, eyes wide with concern. “Are you okay?” he mouthed.

Hilo nodded though it was increasingly obvious that he wasn’t. He gestured at the phone still held to Kehn’s ear. Kehn shouldn’t be ignoring the Pillar like this, especially not ignoring a Pillar who thought it likely his younger brother was untrustworthy and would someday usurp him.

Still, Hilo couldn’t stay here and keep listening to Kehn talking to Lan. The nausea may have eased but the knowledge that his brother was on the other end of the phone and the depth of his distain was too much. He needed to get out of this fucking room.

He pushed off the table and strode from the room. There was guard at the end of the hallway at the top of the stairs so Hilo turned left to avoid having to speak to him. The only thing there was this direction beyond empty rooms was the bathroom so he went in there. The room was small and hadn’t been cleaned anytime recently but at least it was private. He splashed cold water on his face which calmed him a little then lifted his head to study his face in the dusty mirror. His face was pale and pinched and grave and his eyes were still a bit red and puffy from crying. He found he had no desire to know what his aura felt like.

Ten minutes passed and then there was a knock on the door. “Hilo-jen?” Kehn asked.

Hilo opened the door and he and Kehn stood on either side of the threshold while his First Fist studied him. “Did you end up throwing up?” Kehn asked. “Because if you did I’m going to treat the fact that you’re imminently marrying my little sister like it gives me a close family member’s ability to have veto status on your health and sending you home regardless of everything that’s going on tonight.”

“No, I didn’t. I’m fine,” Hilo said. “Did Lan approve dealing with Doru tonight?”

“He did,” Kehn said. “Are you sure you don’t want Tar and I to handle it? You really don’t seem fine.”

“This is Doru, I need to handle it myself,” Hilo said.

“But you’re not fine,” Kehn said. It was not a question; Kehn knew him too well.

The collapse seemed to happen all at once. One moment he was standing in the doorway and the next he was leaning against Kehn’s chest fighting back tears yet again.

“Gods, Kehn,” was all he could get out. “Oh my fucking gods.”