Kaul Hiloshudon (Hilo), the Pillar—or supreme leader—of the No Peak clan, holds a dinner meeting with six dissenting Lantern Men (business-owner clan members). He confronts their leader, Fuyin Kan, accusing him of betraying the clan by secretly paying tribute to the rival Mountain clan. Fuyin denies the accusation, but Hilo reads his reaction as confirmation, and after a bitter tirade against Hilo’s leadership, Fuyin challenges him to a duel. Hilo refuses, declaring Fuyin a traitor unworthy of an honorable duel. When Fuyin pulls a pistol, a fight erupts. Hilo kills Fuyin on the dining table with a talon knife. He then intimidates the remaining Lantern Men, who quickly reaffirm their loyalty to No Peak.

Afterward, Hilo visits a luxury Gentlemen’s club called the Lilac Divine. He declines the charm girl’s efforts to pamper and connect with him, saying tersely, “I have a wife and children at home. I don’t need conversation” (17). When Hilo gets home, he goes to see his wife, Wen, who’s still healing from a previous confrontation with the drug smuggler, Zapunyo, in which she was suffocated to death and then miraculously resurrected. Things are tense between them. Wen knows he treats her as fragile because of the lingering effects of her injuries. The sexual spark that’s always been a part of their relationship has waned.

Kaul Shaelinsan (Shae), No Peak’s Weather Man—the officer of strategy, business, and intelligence—deals with the strategic fallout of Fuyin’s execution. Hami, the clan’s returning Master Luckbringer—head of the clan’s legal and financial dealings—from Port Massy, newly appointed as Rainmaker—close confidant and advisor—for international business development, warns her that new Espenian laws could be used to designate the Green Bone clans as “criminal organizations,” threatening their overseas businesses. Later, Woon, Shae’s chief of staff, reveals that his wife has lost another pregnancy and asks to be moved to a different role in the clan to save his marriage.

In the Espenian city of Port Massy, Maik Tar—Hilo’s Pillarman, or chief enforcer—hunts down Willum “Skinny” Reams, the gang boss responsible for the murder of Rohn Toro, an aging but experienced Green Bone, and for strangling Tar’s sister Wen nearly to death. With the help of local Kekonese-Espenian Green Bones, Tar abducts Reams and takes him out on a boat into the bay. He reveals that both motives—avenging Rohn Toro and personal vengeance for Wen—drive the operation before torturing and brutally killing Reams.

To project an image of strength and unity, Wen, Hilo’s wife, organizes the Kaul family’s lavish New Year’s banquet for the clan’s leadership, despite her ongoing and difficult recovery. The event is a deliberate performance of No Peak’s power at a time of high tension with the Mountain clan. During the party, news arrives that a Ygutanian spy plane, from the developing superpower country of Ygutan, has been shot down by Espenia over Kekonese territory, sparking an international crisis and fears of war. Hilo decides to keep the news from the guests to maintain the appearance of stability and not ruin the holiday.

In response to the international crisis, the Kekon Jade Alliance (KJA) holds an emergency meeting. A military official, General Ronu, asks the clans to increase the military’s jade allocation and allow recruitment directly from martial academies before graduates swear clan oaths. Ayt Mada, the Pillar of the Mountain clan, immediately agrees to both measures, setting a political trap. Hilo agrees to the jade allocation increase but refuses the recruitment reform, unwilling to change how Kaul Dushuron Academy graduates take their oaths, making No Peak appear unpatriotic. After the meeting, the Weather Man of the Six Hands Unity clan, a major Mountain tributary, secretly approaches Shae and signals his clan’s desire to shift its allegiance to No Peak.

Bero attends a meeting of the Clanless Future Movement. The gathering is interrupted by a Ygutanian foreigner named Molovni, who questions the movement’s strategy before suggesting that their goals could be accomplished with the help of “the right friends” (69). Molovni’s appearance and offer of outside support cause a stir among the anti-clan revolutionaries. Bero also meets and attempts to connect with a young woman in the movement named Ema.

Emery Anden, now a medical student, is invited by visiting Espenian doctors to a conference in their capital, Adamont Capita, to demonstrate bioenergetic healing. Seeing an opportunity for No Peak, he gets Hilo and Shae’s blessing to “speak for the family” and build influence (76). In Adamont Capita, he meets with Deputy Secretary Dauk Kelishon of the Industry Department, the eldest sister of Anden’s ex-boyfriend Cory, who firmly rebuffs his attempts to lobby for the clan, prioritizing her Espenian identity over her Kekonese heritage. 

Afterward, Anden visits the Kekonese community in Port Massy, where the local Pillar, Dauk Losun, apologizes for Dauk Kelishon’s attitude and warns him that Maik Tar’s excessive brutality is creating problems and undermining their position.

Hilo visits the Seventh Discipline gym to meet Jim Sunto, a Kekonese-Espenian ex-Navy Angel, an elite special ops soldier, who teaches a modern, military-style of jade combat. After a brief but intense sparring session to test Sunto’s skills, Hilo offers him a job: to reform the Kekonese military’s training program. Hilo’s plan is to show that No Peak is contributing to national defense in a practical way, thereby countering Ayt Mada’s recent political maneuvering and improving the clan’s public image.

When Hilo gets home, he finds Wen has dressed up and made a perfect meal, but he’s distracted and distant. Breaking the tension, Wen asks Hilo if he wants a divorce. Hilo gets angry and storms out of the house. He drives aimlessly, thinking about his history with Wen and all the pressure on his shoulders as the Pillar of No Peak. Eventually, he returns home wanting to make amends with Wen. He finds her already in bed, and they have sex.

Shae travels to the city of Lukang for a secret meeting with the leadership of the Six Hands Unity clan, who intend to defect from the Mountain and swear allegiance to No Peak. The meeting is an ambush. The clan’s Horn, Jio Somu, has betrayed his uncle to the Mountain. Nau Suen, the Horn of the Mountain, arrives with his Fists. Tyne Retu, Six Hands Unity’s weather man, is stabbed when he lunges at the traitor. Jio Wasu, a Six Hands Unity Pillarman, is cut down in the ensuing gunfire, and Luto, who was just appointed Shae’s new chief of staff after Woon was reassigned, is killed during Shae’s escape attempt. Shae is shot in the leg but is deliberately left alive by Nau, the Mountain assassin, who tells her that Ayt Mada is unstoppable and that she has “no choice but to fight, of course. But [she] can’t win” (114).

The ambush in Lukang ignites a clan war in the city, with No Peak and the Mountain battling for control of the fractured Six Hands Unity clan. Recovering from her injury, Shae uses intelligence gained before the ambush to deduce Ayt Mada’s grand strategy: She is secretly funding her war by buying back black-market jade smuggled through Lukang. 

In response, Shae and Woon orchestrate a major political counterattack, pushing the government to enact a trade embargo against the Uwiwa Islands, cutting off the Mountain’s illicit revenue stream. Hilo and Shae recognize they are fighting a long-term, multi-front war of attrition, their own “slow war” against the Mountain.

Woon’s wife, Kiya, visits Shae in her office and tells her she’s leaving Woon because she knows he’s in love with Shae. When Shae asks if there’s anything she can do for Kiya or her family, Woon’s wife says, “Kaul Shaelinsan, Weather Man of No Peak […] you can fuck off and die” (125).

After being arrested by Janloon police for vandalism, Bero is secretly intercepted by Espenian military intelligence agents. They reveal their knowledge of his involvement in the Clanless Future Movement (CFM) and their interest in the Ygutanian operative, Molovni, who has been attending the group’s meetings. They offer Bero a “new job”: to become their informant inside the CFM, reporting on Molovni’s activities. In exchange, they offer to pay his fine, protect him, and give him a substantial monthly salary. Bero accepts the deal.

After Hilo’s nephew, Niko, is taunted by other children about his parentage, Hilo decides there can be “no more secrets” in the family (132). He passes by the florists and gardeners preparing the house for Woon and Shae’s wedding and takes the eight-year-old boy aside to tell him the full truth about his birth mother, Eyni: She betrayed the clan and fled the country with another man while pregnant. Hilo explains that he gave her the chance to return with Niko to Janloon, but when she tried to flee with him again, Hilo tracked her down and executed her so he could retrieve Niko and raise him in the Kaul family.

In a fit of rage during an argument, Maik Tar, Wen’s brother and close friend to Hilo, murders his fiancée, Iyn Ro, a senior Fist of the No Peak clan. Horrified and remorseful, he calls Hilo for help. By No Peak’s sacred code, killing a fellow Green Bone is a crime punishable by death. Hilo takes Tar into the woods to personally carry out the execution, but at the last moment, he finds he cannot kill the man who is like a brother to him. He instead strips Tar of his jade and exiles him from Kekon forever, an act of mercy that defies clan expectations. Hilo blames himself for overusing Tar as a weapon and asks Wen to step into Tar’s advisory role as his Pillarman, to help him lead differently.

A historical text recounts the story of King Eon II, the last king of Kekon, who was reviled as a coward for surrendering to the invading Shotarian Empire centuries ago. Modern scholarship, however, suggests his capitulation saved millions of lives and that he secretly sold off royal possessions and funneled the money to Green Bone guerillas via Lantern Men intermediaries, funding the resistance that eventually liberated the country. The interlude provides a thematic parallel for the difficult, morally ambiguous choices of leadership, ending with the disgraced king’s lament that he will be judged for what he wasn’t, while hoping the gods will judge him for what he did not do—namely, lead his people into annihilation.