Jade War characters

Also known as Kaul Hilo, the Pillar

Appears from the start

Pillar of the No Peak clan since his elder brother Lan was murdered by the Mountain, and formerly its Horn. Charismatic, hot-tempered and physically dangerous, he leads by personal loyalty rather than policy and takes every attack on the clan as an attack on his family. He is married to Wen, a stone-eye, against the expectations of Kekonese society, and he relies on his sister Shae to run the parts of the clan he has no patience for. The stalemate that ended the last round of the clan war has not changed his intention to destroy Ayt Mada eventually.

Also known as Kaul Shae, the Weather Man

Appears from the start

The Weather Man of No Peak, running the clan's businesses, finances and political relationships, a job she took reluctantly and now does with authority. Educated abroad in Espenia, she is the member of the family who understands that Kekon's future will be decided by foreign trade, foreign money and foreign armies as much as by street fighting, and she is pushing the clan's interests overseas. Her relationship with Hilo is close and combative; she is one of very few people who can argue with him and be heard.

Also known as Wen, Kaul Wen

Appears from the start

Hilo's wife, and a stone-eye, born unable to perceive or wear jade at all, which Kekonese custom regards as a misfortune close to a disgrace. She manages the Kaul household and the clan's social and charitable face, and is far more ambitious on the clan's behalf than her husband realizes. Her condition makes her invisible to a Green Bone's Perception, and she has already used that once to do work the clan could not otherwise have done.

Also known as Anden

First appears in chapter 3

The Kauls' half-Espenian adopted cousin, who graduated at the top of his academy class and then renounced jade entirely after killing the Mountain's Horn with Channeling nearly destroyed him. Unable to be what the clan raised him to be and unwilling to explain himself, he is sent out of Kekon to Espenia, to board with a Kekonese immigrant family in Port Massy and study there. He experiences the arrangement as exile and punishment as much as opportunity.

Also known as Kaul Sen, the Torch of Kekon

Appears from the start

The Kaul grandfather, founder of No Peak and one of the heroes of Kekon's war of independence, now very old, very ill and estranged from the grandson who runs his clan. His authority is long spent, but his name still carries enormous weight in Kekon.

Also known as the Horn

First appears in chapter 2

The Horn of No Peak, promoted by Hilo after he became Pillar, and the elder of the two Maik brothers. Calm, methodical and enormously loyal, he commands the clan's warriors and manages the daily business of an armed organization that is also fighting a cold war. He is Wen's brother.

Also known as the Pillarman

First appears in chapter 2

Hilo's Pillarman, the younger Maik brother, who carries out the killings and errands the clan does not put in writing. Effective, unsentimental and increasingly reliant on the confidence that comes from being the Pillar's personal instrument.

Also known as Woon Papi

First appears in chapter 2

Formerly Lan's Pillarman, now Shae's Shadow, the senior aide who supports the Weather Man and manages her office. Conscientious, discreet and steadying, he is one of the few people who sees how much the job costs her, and his regard for her is more than professional.

Also known as Ayt Mada

First appears in chapter 5

Pillar of the Mountain clan, which she still intends to make the only clan on Kekon. The last round of the war cost her a Horn and much of her momentum without loosening her grip on her own people. Patient, ruthless and strategically far-sighted, she is playing a longer game than her rivals, and her view is that Kekon's jade must be defended from foreign powers by a single unified authority rather than divided between quarrelling families.

First appears in chapter 9

A smuggler from the Uwiwa Islands who has grown rich moving Kekonese jade to buyers who cannot obtain it legally. Sentimental about his family and utterly pragmatic about everything else, he lives on a fortified estate outside Kekon's reach, guarded by hired fighters who wear stolen jade and take drugs to tolerate it, and he is the reason jade keeps leaving the island.

First appears in chapter 4

A jadeless opportunist from Janloon who has spent years trying and failing to make himself into somebody through stolen jade. Persistent, resentful and entirely without loyalty, he treats every disaster he survives as evidence that the next scheme will work.

First appears in chapter 8

A university academic whom Shae becomes involved with: mild, thoughtful and entirely outside the world of clan violence. The relationship gives Shae a life away from the clan, which is exactly why it is difficult to sustain and why her brother distrusts it.

First appears in chapter 24

Kaul Lan's former wife, who left him before his death and has built a life abroad, far from Kekon, jade and the clans. She has no wish to be found by the Kaul family and no reason to trust them.

Also known as Niko

First appears in chapter 24

A small boy living abroad with his mother, and the son Kaul Lan never knew he had. He has been raised outside Kekon with no knowledge of the clan, which makes him, by the reckoning of the Kaul family, the rightful heir of a dead Pillar.

Also known as Dauk

First appears in chapter 17

The informal leader of the Kekonese community in Southtrap, the immigrant district of Port Massy in Espenia. A respected elder who settles disputes, protects his neighbors and keeps a small circle of jade-wearing men around him, he holds a position much like a small clan Pillar's, without any authority the Espenian state recognizes and without the protection Kekonese custom would give him at home.

Also known as Cory

First appears in chapter 13

Dauk Losun's son, Espenian-born, a law student with an easy confidence in a country his parents still find foreign. He is impatient with the old-country customs his father maintains and drawn to Anden as someone who is both Kekonese in a way he is not and as adrift in Port Massy as he would be in Janloon.