Jade War recap

With the Kaul grandfather dead and Anden exiled to Espenia, the war between No Peak and the Mountain becomes a global one. Espenia, fighting a proxy war abroad, wants Kekonese jade and the drug that lets foreigners use it, and Shae, as Weather Man, trades access for weapons and political cover, while Ayt Mada's Mountain moves jade to Kekon's enemies through Zapunyo, a smuggler in the Uwiwa Islands. In Port Massy, Anden discovers the Kekonese immigrant community and the criminal crews preying on it, takes up jade again to defend it, and becomes involved with Dauk Cory. The Kauls also discover that Lan left a son, Niko, being raised abroad by his mother, and bring the boy back to Kekon. Hilo commits the clan to killing Zapunyo, and the operation succeeds, but the escape goes wrong: Wen, who has been secretly working for the clan with Shae's help, is badly injured in an explosion and permanently impaired. Hilo learns of the deception, the Mountain remains unbeaten, and the clan war continues on an international stage.

Previously, in Jade City: on the island nation of Kekon, bioenergetic jade grants trained Kekonese, called Green Bones, heightened strength, speed, senses and other abilities, and the jade trade is controlled by clans. In the capital, Janloon, the Kaul family's No Peak clan went to war with Ayt Mada's Mountain clan after she demanded that No Peak submit to a single unified clan under her leadership and Kaul Lan, No Peak's Pillar, refused. During the war Lan's sister Shae, newly home from Espenia, exposed the clan's own Weather Man, Yun Dorupon, as a traitor, and Lan removed him. Lan, secretly weakened by a sabotaged supply of the jade drug shine, was then ambushed and killed by Gont Asch, the Horn of the Mountain. Lan's younger brother Hilo became Pillar, made Shae his Weather Man, installed the Maik brothers Kehn and Tar as Horn and Pillarman, and had the disgraced Yun Dorupon executed against their grandfather's wishes, permanently estranging the two men. A No Peak offensive on New Year's Eve failed to kill Ayt Mada, but the Kauls' adopted cousin Anden killed Gont Asch with a lethal use of Channeling, an act that damaged him so badly he renounced jade for good. The war ended in exhaustion rather than victory, with both clans intact, Kekon's jade drawing serious foreign interest, and Hilo married to Wen, a stone-eye, over his family's objections.

Kaul Sen, the founder of No Peak and a hero of Kekon's war of independence, dies, and Janloon turns out for a funeral that is also a demonstration of the clan's strength. His death removes the last check on Hilo's authority and the last living link to the friendship between the two clans' founders. Anden, who still refuses to wear jade, is sent out of the country: Hilo places him with a Kekonese family in Port Massy, in Espenia, to study, and everyone involved understands the arrangement as exile. The clan war, meanwhile, has cooled into something colder and much larger. Espenia is fighting a war abroad against forces backed by Ygutan, and it wants Kekonese jade and shine for its own soldiers. Both No Peak and the Mountain can see that Kekon's future will be settled by foreign trade and foreign politics as much as by street fighting, and Shae begins pushing the clan's business overseas.

Anden's life in Port Massy is a hard demotion. He is a charity case in a stranger's household, in a country where Kekonese immigrants are treated as second class, and without jade he is nobody in either culture. He begins to learn how the diaspora works: its own informal leadership, its own protection arrangements, and the Espenian criminal crews who have discovered that Kekonese jade is worth a fortune to men willing to take the drug that makes it usable. He meets Dauk Cory, the confident, Espenian-raised son of the community's leading family. In Kekon, Shae negotiates with Espenian commercial and government interests, trading access to jade for advantage, while the Mountain pursues its own foreign strategy: Ayt Mada is moving jade off the island through Zapunyo, a smuggler based in the Uwiwa Islands whose private guards wear stolen Kekonese jade and who sells to whoever pays, including Kekon's enemies.

In Port Massy, Anden is drawn further into the affairs of the Kekonese community of Southtrap, whose respected elder Dauk Losun keeps order among his own people much as a small clan would, without jade laws, without status and without any authority the Espenian state recognizes. The crews' appetite for jade puts that community under mounting pressure. In Janloon, Shae becomes involved with Maro, an academic entirely outside clan life, and finds that a private life and the Weather Man's job do not sit comfortably together, while the clan's leadership argues over how far No Peak should go in binding itself to Espenian interests.

The clans fight through institutions as much as in the streets. Control of the body that governs the mining and distribution of Kekon's jade, and influence over the Royal Council, determine who profits from foreign demand, and both clans buy politicians, businesses and newspapers accordingly. There are killings, formal grievances and duels, and No Peak's overseas ventures are attacked as fast as they are built. Hilo builds a family life alongside the war, as he and Wen raise children and the clan's inner circle closes tighter around him. The Kauls also learn that Lan left a child: his former wife, Eyni, was pregnant when she left him and has been raising the boy, Niko, abroad, with no intention of handing the son of a dead Pillar to the clan she blames for his death. For Hilo the question is not negotiable, because the child is a Kaul and belongs in Kekon with his family. Ayt Mada, still committed to one clan over Kekon, works to make No Peak's foreign strategy fail, betting that Kekon's interests lie with Ygutan and the smuggling network rather than with Espenia, and that the Kauls will be remembered as the family that sold the country's jade to foreigners.

In Espenia, the crews move openly against the Kekonese community, and Anden, who has spent two books insisting he is finished with jade, puts it on again to fight, accepting that he cannot protect anyone as a bystander. He and Cory become close in the process. No Peak also settles the question of Lan's son: Niko is brought back to Kekon and raised in the Kaul house alongside Hilo and Wen's own children, as Lan's heir. On the strategic side, the clan concludes that Zapunyo is the hinge of the Mountain's foreign business and that killing him would cut Ayt Mada off from her buyers. Because he lives outside Kekon, heavily guarded and beyond the reach of any ordinary clan attack, the operation will have to be built slowly, disguised as legitimate business, and carried out with help from outside the clan.

No Peak's alliance with Espenia becomes formal and expensive: Kekonese jade and shine for Espenian soldiers, in exchange for weapons, money and political protection. It also means foreigners wearing jade, trained abroad and relying on drugs rather than a lifetime of discipline, which offends everything Kekonese tradition holds about who jade belongs to and leaves No Peak open to the charge of selling the country. Ayt Mada uses that charge for everything it is worth while running her own trade with Ygutan through the smuggler. Wen, who cannot be perceived by any Green Bone, begins working as an intelligence asset for the clan, going where no Green Bone could go unnoticed. Shae knows, and makes use of it. Hilo does not know, and neither woman intends to tell him.

Preparations for the strike on Zapunyo take over the clan: his compound is studied, his associates are approached, and the operation is concealed inside an ordinary-looking commercial negotiation. Hilo and Ayt Mada meet face to face, each measuring what the other can still afford to spend, and neither offers anything. The costs of the war keep accumulating on both sides in money, in reputation and in dead Green Bones, and Kekon itself is now a country that foreign governments make plans about rather than a place that decides its own affairs. Wen's role in the operation grows, because she can stand next to a jade wearer without being sensed, and Shae lets her take it.

The operation goes ahead in the Uwiwa Islands. Zapunyo is killed, and with him goes the network that carried the Mountain's jade to its foreign buyers. The withdrawal does not go cleanly. An explosion catches Wen, and she survives with serious injuries, including damage that impairs her speech and movement and that will not fully heal. Hilo learns not only that his wife was nearly killed, but that she had been working for the clan for a long time, with his sister's knowledge and with his own kept deliberately in the dark.

The Mountain's foreign pipeline is destroyed and Ayt Mada's strategy is badly set back, but she is not beaten, and No Peak's victory is paid for at home. Wen lives, permanently impaired, and Hilo cannot forgive either her deception or Shae's part in it; the trust between the Pillar and his Weather Man, and between Hilo and his wife, is broken in a way that will not be quickly repaired. Anden comes home to Kekon, wearing jade again and no longer in exile, leaving behind a life and a partner in Espenia that he has not given up. Niko is growing up in the Kaul house as Lan's son and No Peak's presumed heir, alongside Hilo and Wen's own children. Kekon ends the book tied tightly to Espenia, with foreign soldiers wearing its jade and foreign money in its politics, and with both clans still at war on a board that now spans several countries.

No Peak's operation against the smuggler Zapunyo succeeds: he is killed and the pipeline carrying Kekonese jade to the Mountain's foreign buyers is destroyed, a serious defeat for Ayt Mada's overseas strategy but not the end of her clan. The victory is paid for at home. Wen, who had been working secretly as the clan's intelligence asset because no Green Bone can sense her, is caught in an explosion and survives with lasting injuries that impair her speech and movement. Hilo learns both that his wife nearly died and that she had been operating for months with his sister's knowledge and his own ignorance, and neither relationship recovers by the end of the book. Anden comes home to Kekon, wearing jade again after taking it up to defend the Kekonese community in Port Massy, and leaves behind a life and a partner in Espenia that he has not given up. Lan's son Niko is now being raised in the Kaul house alongside Hilo and Wen's own children, as No Peak's presumed heir. Kekon closes the book bound tightly to Espenia, with foreign soldiers wearing its jade and foreign money in its politics, and with No Peak and the Mountain still at war, on a board that now covers several countries.