Jade War

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.

The possibility of death was like the weather—you could make attempts to predict it, but you would likely be wrong, and no one would change their most important plans due to threat of rain.

My grandfather taught me that if a friend asks for your forgiveness, you should always give it. [...] He also taught me that if you have to give it again, then they weren't a friend to begin with.

Funny, isn’t it? No matter where you are in the world, the one thing that keeps men from killing each other is a fear of what’ll happen after they’re dead.

If you're not sure you're in love, then you're not.

We women claw for every inch we gain in this world...

No matter where you go, others will try to define you. Unless you define yourself.

If you want to lead, you can’t wait for everyone to line up behind you.

You can make a rational, well-informed choice, and still be unprepared for what it means.

The clan can claim everything I have —my time, my blood and sweat, my life and jade—but it can’t have my wife. She’s a stone-eye. She’s the one thing in the world that jade can’t touch.

She understood that her value in the clan, her value to her family, to Hilo, and most of all, in her own mind, lay not in what she could accomplish herself — because a stone-eye was always something of a blank space amid the strong auras around them, a void where gazes and expectations slid off like oil — but in what she made possible for others. She was unable to wield jade herself, but as a White Rat for the Weather Man, she had taken jade to those who could and would use it for the clan’s gain. She had not borne the Pillar a son who could follow in the family’s footsteps, but she had ensured that Niko was brought back to be raised in his rightful place. She could never be a Green Bone herself, as much as she felt she was one at heart, but she could think like a Green Bone. She was an enabler, an aide, a hidden weapon, and that was worth something. Perhaps a great deal.

People are born selfish; babies are the most selfish creatures, even though they’re helpless and wouldn’t survive a day on their own.

We're getting into a dangerous game, Hilo." "You have to go where your enemies are," Hilo said. "And then further.

only the sort of heaviness that comes from wanting something for so long that the final achievement of it is a loss—because the waiting is over and the waiting has become too much a part of oneself to let go of easily.

Sometimes the most obvious and direct answer is the best one.

A misunderstanding between friends is okay. A misunderstanding between enemies isn’t.

You have to move back home, Andy," Hilo said quietly. "I've missed you." Anden had been waiting to hear those words come out of his cousin's mouth for years. Now, however, he felt no great relief or happiness - only the sort of heaviness that comes from wanting something for so long that the final achievement of it is a loss - because the waiting is over and the waiting has become too much a part of oneself to let go of easily.

Rain fell, not steadily but with insulting indifference

A dog that was once starved will bark at anyone who comes near his food, no matter how much he has now.

We women claw for every inch we gain in this world, and you’d worked too hard for your place on Ship Street to let it be taken from you.

Gold and jade, never together.’ Those of us who wear jade don’t hold political office, but you’re not asking for gold—you’re asking for jade. In that, the clans have the final say.

Each of Hilo’s words came out as distinct as a slowly drawn knife cut. “I will never swear oaths to you.

Twelve men,” the Finger said at once. “Hilo-jen… they’re here to kill us.

I came because I’m honestly curious to hear what a scavenger like you could possibly have to say to me as Pillar.

While we may be born into families, it doesn't necessarily mean we belong to them.

I promise.” He looked at his watch, picked up his bag, and gave her a quick kiss on the mouth. “I’m going to be a father. I know that changes things.

We women claw for every inch we gain in this world,