Finn examined the family crest. It was older, the details dulled and worn down over the years. It had been polished recently, but there were a few spots where the rust and dirt were too deeply ingrained to be removed.
The arrow and the hammer were identifiable, though. Emmy and Patrick, who leaned over his shoulder to look, could both make them out.
"So they belong to the Yang family," Patrick murmured.
But Finn shook his head. "They could have stolen those uniforms to frame them."
"Who'd be stupid enough to rob the Vault in their own uniform?" Emmy agreed.
Patrick shrugged. "They could have just assumed they'd never be caught."
Emmy and Finn shared a look. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility that a member of a noble family was that arrogant.
"This is an older crest, though," Emmy admitted. "I don't think they've made these in a decade or so."
Confused, Finn turned it over in his hands. "How can you tell?"
"See how worn down it is? It's pure gold, very pliable. Too pliable. It's why you can't make weapons out of it." She reached over and pressed her nail into the edge, leaving an indentation. "They were damaged too easily. And they didn't maintain their detail enough to look nice."
Finn and Patrick gave her surprised looks. "Why do you know that?"
"Because it was a big deal when they switched to gold-coated iron. I think they actually took a lot of shit about it in the court because they were using a lesser metal. There was a lot of talk that they were broke and trying to hide it."
Finn frowned. "If they're broke, they're hiding it very well."
"It could have just been rumors," Emmy admitted. "That's the problem with people in the Court. You never know if they're telling the truth."
"They would have melted all the crests down when they switched, but I guess it's not impossible to think soldiers kept some, or that a few were lost or stolen." Patrick mussed.
"It's exactly what you'd drop if you wanted to frame someone," Emmy added.
Finn carefully wrapped up the crest and tucked it in the breast pocket of his shirt. "I'll show it to Henri. I'm supposed to have lunch with him and Marian tomorrow. Let's go back and see if they dropped anything else while they were running."
Patrick and Emmy pulled the torches off the wall, and they made their way back down the twisting hallways, crouched low with their eyes peeled.
***
The pain had finally overwhelmed Yuze's nervous system, and he'd started to go numb. The leather whips used by the tribes could strip flesh from bone in a dozen strikes, but they'd varied their aim and strength. Yuze's back and legs had felt like they were on fire for hours before it had finally dulled into a constant ache.
The tent was stiffling, the air hot and heavy from the body heat of its occupants. Beng Shai had left when Yuze had made it to the fourth hour without speaking, and his interrogators had rotated out several times. Yuze didn't recognize any of them, but his vision had gone blurry hours ago, around the same time he'd stopped being able to smell anything by his own blood.
The tribes didn't typically indulge in torture. It took too much time and effort, and they rarely cared about their enemies beyond the end of the fight.
He'd gone so numb that he didn't even hear the torturer leave this time. It took several minutes for his body to register that another blow hadn't come, and his blood started to cool, and the pain started to come back with a vengeance.
His eyes were glued shut from dried sweat, and he couldn't muster the energy to open them when he finally heard the tent flap open again and footsteps approach.
He couldn't even brace himself for the next blow.
It didn't come.
Were they finally going to put him out of his misery?
A warm, wet cloth moved over his eyes. It wasn't gentle, but it worked to remove the dried sweat, and it moved onto the rest of his face after.
It took effort to open his eyes, and once he had, he was sure he was hallucinating.
The cloth was in Kai Low's hand, and the young man had a deep frown on his normally smooth face.
Exhausted, Yuze barely managed to follow his movements as the younger man carefully wiped his face, shoulders, and chest.
It was an unexpected gesture of kindness.
So unexpected it was suspicious, and Yuze wondered what Kai Low was planning.
The man didn't make him wait long to find out. "You should just tell Beng Shai what he wants to know. He is more like your lot than the rest of us. You will suffer."
"I have already suffered." Yuze croaked.
Kai Low frowned. "This cannot be worth your life. You will never go home."
"But my home will be safe. That is worth my life." Something in Yuze settled as he said it. His entire life there had always been a chance he would die in service to the Camelia, more likely and less likely at different times, but the realization that it was happening now gave him a sense of peace.
A final long rest.
Kai Low took his chin between his fingers and forced Yuze's eyes to meet his. "You are giving up?"
Yuze laughed as best he could. "No. I will live as long as I can." He coughed blood all over Kai Low's fingers. "But I will not run. I will not betray my family. If I die, I will die with honor."
"What honor is there in death?" Kai Low hissed. "You will be dead. There is no honor there."
He wasn't wrong, but Yuze couldn't help but think that he sounded like someone who had never loved something so strongly he couldn't imagine life without it. Hadn't loved someone so much, it was worth dying to protect them.
Yuze had been blessed in his life to find those things for himself, and it made him sad to realize that Kai Low had never had that.
What an empty life that must have been.
A blade appeared at Kai Low's throat.
~ tbc