Kai Low has less and less of an idea what to make of these enlightened people the longer he stays inside stone walls. Asking him to investigate them, like it's some noble thing to ask a stranger to delve into your deepest, darkest secrets.
That's what everyone wants. No one wants friends or family or the people they serve beside every day knowing the darkest parts of them. If they did, those parts wouldn't be the dark ones, the secrets.
Kai San hid so many that Kai Low didn't recognise the brother who had been at his side since birth by the end.
And it left him oddly at a loss for the words that came so easily with everyone else when he found himself face to face with Lady Ye herself.
Alone.
He'd left his rooms in the dead of night to explore, expecting all but the night guards to be asleep, and for most of his walk, they had been. For such a large place with so many people, it managed to be terrifyingly silent in the dark. None of the natural sounds of the prairie reached through the walls.
It felt like a prison, and it made Kai Low's skin itch like the ants that burrowed under the prairie dirt.
He'd found his way out of the main castle and into a small garden illuminated only by the moon. There were many of them dotted throughout the estate, according to a friendly guard, a reminder of nature inside man-made walls.
It was a paltry imitation in Kai Low's opinion.
He'd poked around it just for curiosity's sake, found nothing of interest besides a few struggling plants, and turned to leave when she'd stepped outside.
He'd froze, gone utterly still at the far edge of the garden, the animal instinct to hide in surprise.
But she turned to him immediately, hair practically glowing in the moonlight, as eerie as her unnatural eyes.
He didn't know the garden well enough to escape, and even though she was moving slowly, she advanced with intent.
"Ambassador Kai Low. This is an odd hour to be up." She stopped a few feet away, wrapped in silk and fur.
"You're awake." He pointed out, oddly unnerved by her presence.
She snorted, unladylike compared to the behaviour of the other women he'd seen since he arrived, but he doubted anyone ever said anything to her face. There were women of her significance in the tribes. Wives and mothers and grandmothers who held particular power and were allowed to do almost anything they pleased. Lady Ye held absolute power in this place, and Kai Low was enough of a survivor to realise it.
Her eyes, that terrible shade of green he'd never seen anywhere else, studied him like a bladesmith studying an unformed piece of iron.
Kai Low wasn't sure what she was seeing, but whatever it was, he didn't like it.
"You agreed to take on the investigation."
"Lord Ye was especially convincing." He didn't bother keeping the sarcasm out of his voice.
"You don't care about what happened." She stated, eyes hard.
He shrugged. "It was war. People die in war, dwelling on it after never seems to help much."
She hummed, but he couldn't tell if she was agreeing with him or not. "People are going to be angry."
He shrugged again. She wasn't saying anything he didn't already know.
"You will have to find out the truth, not quit halfway through when you get bored."
There was a mean edge in her tone, and Kai Low bristled. "I uphold my oaths. If your lot wants to waste their time poking at each other, it's not like I have anything better to do in this godless place." He scoffed. "Maybe it'll even be entertaining. I can't imagine there won't be at least a little bloodshed." He grinned then, made it as cruel as he could. Something about her icy demeanour left him wrong-footed and angry.
She was supposed to be a wildfire. His people were still talking about how she'd burned the very air around them at the battle on the river fork, and he'd seen her stop Song and Snow's flames. She wasn't even fully healed, but she'd ventured out in the chill of the night to confront him, only to show him nothing but a blank face and inhuman eyes.
"Everything about the court is messy," she murmured. "Everything about humans is messy, and it will likely be a bigger one than you're expecting."
"So?" He growled. "That's a problem for you and your husband. Or do you expect me to find out and solve it?"
All she offered was a bland smile. "No, but we expect your honesty. I wonder if it will hold up against the court?"
Kai Low gritted his teeth at the open insult. "Your court holds no power over me. I am not a part of it. I am only here to represent the interests of the tribes. I don't care what happens to this place or the people in it, and you and your husband would do well to remember that."
~ tbc