“Exactly what I said, is all,” Hilo snapped. He ground out his cigarette with more force than necessary. “Maybe that wasn’t the right way to put it,” he admitted grudgingly. “All I’m saying is that I’m glad we won’t have another issue like we did in the past. Maro’s too idealistic, but he seems like a man with a good heart. He’s not anywhere near as green as you are, but there aren’t that many men who are, so that’s no surprise. As long as he makes you happy, that’s what’s important. Do you love him?”
Shae was thrown by the sudden question. The contrast between Hilo’s bluntness and apparent reasonableness made her unsure. “I think so,” she answered, almost without thinking.
Hilo said, “If you’re not sure you’re in love, then you’re not.”
Of course that would be something Hilo would say. Shae knew for certain that she loved the time she spent in Maro’s company, their long conversations, the warmth of him next to her in bed, the way he was everything that No Peak so often was not: peaceable, thoughtful, open-minded. When she was with him, she felt valued and attractive. She could imagine a future unfolding before them. But she had been cautious ever since Jerald.
“I think we’re getting there,” Shae said. “I wish we could spend more time together. The clan doesn’t leave room for much else.”
Her brother’s posture slackened. “I know,” he said, and rubbed a tired hand over his eyes. Looking at him, Shae lost some of her irritation and could not help but feel a pang of sympathy. Hilo was the most hands-on Pillar anyone had ever known. He still left most of the business and political matters to her, but she’d seen him sitting at the kitchen table in the evenings, forcing his way through industry reports and highlighting the parts he needed to ask her about. He dutifully attended the meetings she arranged with corporate executives and councilmen, compensating for lack of business experience and knowledge with the undeniable force of his personal presence. Although he’d gradually given Kehn a great deal more autonomy, he still went out into the streets and talked with his Fists and Fingers, met with Lantern Men, and reviewed every aspect of No Peak’s military activities, which had shifted and grown to include patrols in motorized boats and stakeouts in the mountainous wilderness.
Ayt Mada could command respect as a leader with her public poise and canny rhetoric. Hilo could not do that, but he managed the vast No Peak clan in the same way he’d built his following as Horn: through thousands of conversations and personal interactions with his people, painstakingly accomplished one at a time. It was an effective but grueling way to be the Pillar. And now he also had two small children to take up all the rest of his energy.
“I’ve no problem with Maro,” Hilo said, “but I don’t want any secrets or surprises. If it gets serious, if you want to marry him and bring him into the family, you have to tell me. You have to ask me properly.”
“Because you’re my older brother?” Shae said, smirking a little.
“Yes,” he said, with a touch of anger and a glare that said she was being difficult. “I’m the Pillar,” Hilo said. “You don’t do something that affects the whole clan without the Pillar’s say so. I went to Lan to ask for his permission before I married Wen.”
“And what if he’d said no?”
“He didn’t. Why would he do that?” Hilo’s aura was crackling with irritation now. “Just because you’re my sister and the Weather Man, you think the rules don’t apply to you? Kehn came to me properly. So did Woon. Of course I said yes to both of them.”
Shae blinked. “Woon… asked you if he could…?”
Hilo blinked back at her. “You didn’t know?” He gave her an odd, almost pitying look. “Shortly after New Year’s. He came to see me and brought his girlfriend. They hadn’t been together long, maybe four or five months. But the families know each other, and they seem happy together. As happy as Woon ever seems, that is. It’s hard to tell with him.”
New Year’s had been eight weeks ago. Shae had been talking to Woon in her office that afternoon. “Why didn’t he tell me?” she asked, more to herself than to Hilo.
“He was probably planning to and forgot,” Hilo said, though Shae could tell he didn’t believe that was the reason. Woon did not forget anything.
