Growing up, Kai Low had idolized his older brother. Kai San was everything the tribal mothers dreamed of for their sons, everything tribal fathers demanded of them. He walked with his back straight, had two braids from victories in battle by his fourteenth birthday, and always seemed to have a gaggle of women trailing after him, hoping to earn a moment alone to make their case to be his wife. Beng Shan had actually been one of Kai San's closest friends, and even Kai Low had believed they'd marry one day despite the break between the rest of their family and the Bandri. There'd even been unofficial marriage talks after their older sister had married Beng Shai, but it had all fallen apart when she'd died, and Kai San had turned traitor and left.
Beng Shan had never married, and Kai Low suspected she was still in love with his brother and unwilling to risk loving someone else. She was raising his nieces and nephews, adopted by Beng Shai after his marriage to Kai Low's sister and left to Beng Shan's care after his death. Kai Low wasn't as close to them now as he had been when his sister had been alive. Everything that had happened had left Kai Low unable to look at them without remembering the two siblings he'd lost on the same night, and they were better off without the reminder of their mother. They barely remembered anything about her now.
Lord Ye and his wife didn't have children yet, from what Kai Low had gathered. Neither did Lord Zhao nor Lord Rong, though that last one was just a guess based on little information there actually was about the spy.
He watched the gossiping horde fall silent as Lord Ye and his wife took their seats and wondered how much they knew about what was coming? He'd seen both Beng Shai and Kai San taken completely by surprise by things they thought they'd known and people they thought they knew. Kai San himself had gotten away with a great many things because people had thought they knew what to expect of him.
In Kai Low's experience, people took the measure of someone the first time they met someone and then refused to change it until someone forced them to. It was just further proof that most people were either idiots or liars.
The rest of the room rose when they entered and returned to their seats after they did, the mood immediately turning somber and silent. Lady Ye's injuries were still healing, and despite the care taken to conceal them, they were simply too numerous and too serious to do so completely. Her hair was wrapped in silk and decorated with jewels. She was wrapped in layers of robes that couldn't quite hide how skinny she was, which was not how she was described by the survivors of the battle at the river fork. The makeup on her face hid the pinkness of regrowing skin, but not the hollows of her cheeks.
And she was missing an eyebrow.
Kai Low bit back the urge to laugh. Lord Ye's wife was a fearsome little thing who contained far more power than she looked like she should. A far too friendly guard had told him she was from an even bigger stone city in the middle of an ocean to the west, the capital, he'd called it.
Kai Low had no idea what an ocean was or why they'd built a city in the middle of it, but the guard had certainly been excited to talk about it.
Lord Ye and his wife were the same age as Kai Low, but they carried themselves like the pompous elders. Backs were stiff and straight, even when they were sitting.
It occured to Kai Low that they didn't want to be there either. That they had some idea of what was coming. It was good, he figured, that they weren't that stupid. That meant there was less of a chance that they'd betray the tribes again. Or that their motives or plans would be so utterly incomprehensible that even Kai Low wouldn't be able to make heads or tales of them.
Lord Ye opened the meeting with little fanfare. Usually, the elders liked to make speeches, but Lord Ye barely said a handful of words before allowing the members of the court to start in on their complaints.
And everyone seemed to have some sort of complaint. Most seemed rather standard, the same thing Kai Low had complained about as a commander. Not enough men, not enough supplies, shitty intelligence that came too late, too many people involved in making decisions, the list was endless.
And those were when he won; the list was even longer when he lost.
Lord Ye didn't seem surprised by most of them, and truthfully, there was little that could be done about any of them now, and they were mostly dropped once Lord Ye acknowledged them.
But this meeting must have been called for something more important than this, Kai Low realized. There was something besides all these supposed complaints that had united the court against Lord Ye.
~ tbc