“You left Janloon under not the best of circumstances, and you’ve grown used to this foreign country, so I can appreciate you’re reluctant to return. And you want to stay with your boyfriend, I understand that.” He leaned forward to look into her downcast face. “Here’s what I can promise: You and your family will have a good life in Janloon, better than what you have here. The clan will make all the arrangements. You’ll have a house, on or off the Kaul estate—it’s your choice. A car and driver, a housekeeper, a nanny for Niko, and whatever else you need. Once you’re married in Janloon, I’ll welcome your husband into the family. He’s lived in Kekon before. Does he still work in tourism? There’re plenty of foreigners in Janloon these days, and more international companies than ever before. It won’t be a problem to find him a good job; he’ll probably have his pick.” Of course, Hilo had no intention of ever bringing Eyni’s foreign lover into No Peak, but he supposed he could learn to tolerate the man’s presence in Janloon, so long as their interactions were infrequent. It was an issue he was willing to compromise on, since Eyni was the sort of person who would need companionship, and no respectable Kekonese man was going to have her.
While she was contemplating his assurances, Hilo said, “Tar, why don’t you get us all something to drink.” The Pillarman, who’d been sitting back and watching the exchange, got up and went into the galley kitchen. Eyni looked up anxiously and made a slight movement as if to follow him, but then seemed to think better of it. She settled back and twisted her hands together in her lap. Hilo said, “There’s something else to consider: My wife, Wen, is pregnant. She’s due in less than two months. Niko will have cousins close to his age. He’ll have aunts and uncles who love him, and in Janloon, he’ll grow up as a Kaul, as the first son of No Peak.” He gestured to Eyni’s house and its surroundings. “Is this place so much better that it’s worth giving up your son’s birthright? Worth abandoning your home country?”
Tar returned with two glasses of water. Eyni’s hands trembled slightly as she took a glass without looking and drained it quickly. Hilo could tell that his last words had struck a chord. Eyni might be a woman without much depth, but on some level, he knew she must be homesick. She wouldn’t have left Kekon on her own if it hadn’t been for the affair and the divorce, and now that Hilo was offering the forgiveness of the clan and a return to a life of status back in Janloon, it wasn’t hard to Perceive the internal war raging inside her. He drank some water and waited.
Eyni held tight to the empty glass. “It’s true there’re things I don’t like about Lybon and things I miss dearly about Janloon,” she admitted at last. “But the life you’re offering—life in the ruling Green Bone family of No Peak—it’s what broke me and Lan apart. It’s what got him killed. It’s nothing but steel and jade and blood. It’s not a safe or happy life… and it’s not what I want for Niko.”
The flare in the Pillar’s aura made Tar look up with more interest. In a soft, disbelieving voice, Hilo said, “Niko is my nephew, the son of a Pillar of No Peak, the great-grandson of the Torch of Kekon. He was born to be a Green Bone. And you want him to grow up speaking another language, surrounded by foreigners, never wearing jade, never knowing who he is?” Eyni truly was a faithless woman, but Hilo felt that what she was doing now was even worse than her betrayal of Lan. “How can you justify that, as a Kekonese?”
Eyni stood, hands clenched at her sides. “You don’t understand anything, Hilo. Maybe if Lan were still alive, things would be different, but you’re not Lan. You’re not Niko’s father. And I’m not an underling of the clan who’ll upend my family’s life to do whatever you want.”
“Watch how you talk to the Pillar, now,” Tar broke in with a warning note in his voice, but Hilo silenced him with a look and a sharp shake of the head. He’d heard a car door closing outside and now he Perceived someone approaching the house.
Eyni rushed to the door as it opened. A trim Stepenish man with reddish hair stepped inside. Seeing Hilo and Tar, he stopped in surprise and confusion. Hilo rose from his seat and Tar stood with him. Eyni took her boyfriend’s arm and said in Kekonese, so everyone could understand, “Lors, this is Hilo, my ex-husband’s brother from Janloon. He and his friend were visiting Lybon and dropped in to say hello. I forgot to mention they were coming.”
The man’s posture relaxed slightly. Hilo realized that Eyni was afraid for Lors’s safety. She was trying to put him at ease, to prevent him from trying to challenge the strange men in his house. “Hello,” Lors said warily, in accented but reasonably fluent Kekonese. “We haven’t had any of Eyni’s friends from Kekon visit us before. How long are you here?”
“Not long,” Hilo said. “I came to meet my nephew. Until a few months ago, I didn’t know I had one. It’s unfortunate you live so far away; the rest of my family would like to meet him too.”
“Yes, well, it’s a rather awkward situation, it is,” said the man, smiling nervously and running a hand through his coppery hair. “We figured there might be some hard feelings, after all.”
“None that can’t be put aside,” Hilo replied. He glanced at Eyni, who stood stiffly by her boyfriend’s side. “I was just talking to Eyni about how much we wish you’d all return to Janloon. But she seems to prefer it here. You must’ve done a good sales job, to be able to lure a Kekonese woman so far from home.”
Lors chuckled, put at ease by Hilo’s casual and complimentary tone. “I must say, before I lived in Kekon, I’d no idea how beautiful the women were there. I don’t know how I was so lucky as to get one.” He gave Eyni’s bottom an affectionate pat. “I’ve traveled to my fair share of exotic places, and I dare say she’s the best souvenir I’ve brought back from any of them. Isn’t that right, flower?” Eyni smiled in a faintly uncomfortable way, still looking at Hilo. Lors said, “Listen, Hilo—I did say your name right, didn’t I? You seem like a good fellow. I just want to say that I never meant anything against your brother. I didn’t even know him. It’s just that Eyni and I, well…” He put his arm around Eyni, who stiffened a little more, “We were—are—in love. Do you have a woman at home that you love?”
Hilo gave a nod.
“Well, then, you can understand, can’t you? In my country, we have a saying.” Lors spoke a phrase in Stepenish, then translated it into Kekonese. “‘Flowers grow even in the desert; so too there is nowhere love cannot happen.’”
Hilo’s lips twitched upward. “It’s nice to see that the two of you are happy together, even after such a big move and the addition of a child that you must’ve hoped was yours.”
The man’s smile wavered. “Well… families can be messy, can’t they? We plan to give Nikolas plenty of brothers and sisters. He’ll fit right in and it’ll all work out.”
“I’m sure it will,” Hilo said. “But it’s a shame for my nephew to be so far from his relatives and not know anything of his Kekonese heritage. So we should compromise. In a few years, when Niko’s older, he can split his time between Stepenland and Kekon. Half the year here in Lybon, half the year in Janloon.” Hilo was honestly pleased with the solution that had just occurred to him, and felt that it could not possibly be objectionable. It was not a perfect arrangement, not what he’d hoped for, but he’d come here knowing that Eyni was difficult. This would be acceptable to everyone. “When he’s in Janloon, he’ll live with me and my wife and we’ll treat him like our own son. There are international schools in Janloon now, even ones that teach Stepenish and other languages. He can attend one of those until he’s ten; then he can go to Kaul Dushuron Academy during the school year and return to Lybon during the holidays. He’ll grow up to appreciate both countries and both cultures. A global citizen. Everyone says that’s the way of the future; it’ll be an advantage for him.”