She spoke aloud, almost in a demand. “What do I do now?”
She couldn’t believe she was pregnant—not intellectually, though she had no reason to doubt the clinic’s verdict. When her cycle was late, she’d assumed that the stress of dealing with the public scandal had something to do with it. She and Maro had taken precautions. She was an educated professional woman, she was the Weather Man. She would’ve placed an unplanned pregnancy well below sudden assassination in her internal ranking of things that she considered likely to happen to her. The timing, she mused despairingly, could not be worse.
Shae had never been able to say if she wanted children. She loved her two nephews dearly but didn’t feel a maternal longing of her own. There was no room for the feeling; her position in the clan was all-consuming, and she’d been beleaguered in her role from the start. Perhaps if things were different, the urge to have children would happen naturally. But nothing in her life, it seemed, happened naturally—only as unavoidable blows, like those of a sledgehammer.
There was no precedent for a woman with children in the leadership of a Green Bone clan. Ayt Mada had no offspring of her own and continued to pointedly ignore those who questioned her about the succession. After Lan’s death and the ouster of Doru, it had been difficult for No Peak to accept a young woman as Weather Man, but it had been a desperate time of clan war, and Shae was a Kaul. She still wore the label of being the Torch’s favorite grandchild, she was backed by respected men like Woon and Hami, and few people dared to challenge her brother.
Those advantages would not help her now. She was already under attack for her past supposed misdeeds; she couldn’t walk into a boardroom or into Wisdom Hall pregnant out of wedlock with the child of a man from a family of little standing in the Green Bone community. Ayt and the press would dig into Maro’s past, would question his parentage and his many trips to Shotar, would flay open his family’s history and discover that he was the bastard of a Shotarian soldier. Maro was not a Kaul; he was barely green. He was not equipped to handle the animosity and scrutiny, the risk to his professional career and to his safety. It would ruin his life.
As for her? It was true that the clan was a big, old ship, but for two and a half years, she’d thrown herself sweating against the wheel, straining No Peak toward the growth and change required to survive enemies at home and the threats of the modern world beyond. Her efforts were beginning to take effect: She’d gotten the clan back on solid financial footing, made advantageous military and trade agreements with the Espenians, expanded the clan’s operations and opened up opportunities. If she was ousted from her position by personal scandal, everything she had accomplished might be undone. Woon and Hami were capable, there was no doubt of that, but they had not lived abroad, they were not as strategic as Ayt Mada, they would not know how to stand up to Hilo or persuade him. And it was worse than that: Shae’s brother had appointed her Weather Man and stubbornly kept her in the role against all opposition; her shameful downfall would cascade through the clan, would become an indictment of the whole family and affect Hilo’s standing as Pillar.
All of these thoughts sank from Shae’s mind through her body and settled like a pile of rocks in the pit of her stomach. She’d assumed business leadership of the clan because she’d been forced—by her own actions and her brother’s death—and when the days were long and the work difficult, she told herself that she was doing it for Lan and for her grandfather. Deep down, she knew herself better than that. She wanted to be the Weather Man.
Shae gazed up at the high ceiling of the sanctum and closed her eyes. She waited for an epiphany, for a sense of spiritual peace to fill her and guide her with certainty. She stretched out her Perception and tried to sense a message in the croon of jade energy that vibrated through her flesh and bones. She felt nothing from the gods, except perhaps a distant watchfulness, and within herself, only a turbulence swirling and coalescing finally into resignation and purpose.
She got up and left the temple.
CHAPTER 30
Heroes Day
Wen alone went with Shae to the clinic early on a Secondday morning. They took one of the family’s nondescript cars, leaving both Wen’s conspicuous Lumezza convertible and Shae’s red Cabriola in the garage. Wen could always say that she was going to the doctor for a prenatal checkup and that Shae was the one accompanying her. At twelve weeks, Wen was clearly showing her second pregnancy. She was still nursing Ru, so between her enlarged breasts and swelling belly, her body was a collection of soft maternal curves. Shae felt as if they were doing something wrong, perhaps inviting bad luck, for Wen to be an accomplice to terminating an unborn life when she was carrying one of her own. “You don’t have to come inside,” she told her sister-in-law. “You’re doing me enough of a favor driving me there and back. That’s all I’m asking for.”
“If it were me, I’d like another woman to be with me,” Wen said. “Why should we have to go through hardships in life by ourselves?” She parked the car in the nearly empty lot. It was still dark; the clinic didn’t open for another two minutes.
“It seems unlucky for you to be here,” Shae said.
Wen cupped her hands around a thermos full of ginger tea, which she drank every morning to help settle her stomach. A wry smile curved her lips. “I’ve been called unlucky my whole life. I’m not afraid of bad luck any more than a bird would be afraid of feathers.”
They went inside and Shae checked in. Getting an abortion was neither particularly easy nor particularly difficult in Janloon. Clinics varied in repute and there was a moderate cost, but the main restriction was that a woman had to obtain the consent of her husband if she was married, or that of a male relative if she was not. This rule was regularly circumvented for an additional fee. Shae had filled out the necessary paperwork in advance and forged Hilo’s signature next to her own at the bottom. The young woman at the reception counter looked at the forms, then at Shae, and her eyes widened. Shae suspected the receptionist did not see heavily jaded Green Bones come through the clinic very often.
Wen went with her into the room and then held her hand during the whole procedure, which took less time than Shae had expected. Afterward, as she rested in a pleasantly sedated state, Shae said, “You were right. I’m glad you’re here.” She almost added, “Please don’t tell anyone,” but caught herself before she said it, realizing how insulting and laughable it would sound. She already knew that her sister-in-law could be trusted with secrets.
Wen drove them home. Shae felt relieved, if somewhat damaged. She thought of Maro—his earnest expression, his thoughtfulness, his genuine optimism and belief in her—and a band of sadness and guilt cinched around her and made it momentarily hard to breathe. The two of them had not discussed having children, but the way Maro spoke so fondly of his nieces, she was certain he wanted a family of his own eventually. She hadn’t called him or returned any of his several messages since they had spoken on the phone in her office three days ago, before she’d known for certain what she had to do. And what she still had to do. She was terrified that if she spoke to him, something in her voice would give her away and he would know, or that hearing his concern or seeing him again would rob her of her conviction.
She leaned her head against the car door. “Do you think less of me now?” she asked.