The High Court didn't like to draw out trials. They investigated. Gathered the evidence. Called the witnesses. Presented it all during the trial, and then they made their own recommendation to whoever was chosen to oversee the trial. Sometimes there were juries, a small group selected to hear everything and give the opinion of the public. Kai Low was part of that group, along with several other nobles who probably shouldn't have counted as the public and a handful of common-born soldiers of the Crimson Army.
The Yangs had not expected to have a jury for this trial, but they'd dismissed their own worries fast enough.
Mingzhe wanted desperately to talk to Chenzhou and Eirian about everything, but as the trial was drawing to a close and the Yangs were looking more and more victorious, a sinking feeling had struck him.
Like he'd been treading water for so long, and now exhaustion was beginning to set in, and he was starting to sink slowly beneath the surface.
The Yangs were winning. Whatever Chenzhou and Eirian and their allies were trying to do to stop them wasn't working.
Or at least it wasn't working fast enough to stop this trial.
How did you make up time when you were generations behind?
The trial was moving into its final phase now. The High Court had called the last of its witnesses. Excluding Mingzhe, who wasn't allowed to speak as he was being charged, and Chenzhou, who was overseeing everything.
They'd called Eirian and Yuze forward, though, but all Eirian's testimony had done was establish that she hadn't been at the Camelia very long, and Yuze's answer to every other question was that he couldn't answer due to security concerns. Neither was surprising, and Mingzhe honestly couldn't tell if they'd helped or hindered him.
Hikari swore the Yangs couldn't tell either. He'd seemed perturbed after their testimony, which Mingzhe took as a good sign, but not worried nearly enough to make Mingzhe feel better.
"It will be fine," Hikari assured him in the Yang family garden that night, "It's still well under control."
Mingzhe had pressed his lips so tightly together to avoid snapping that he'd lost all feeling in them.
"It's been clearly established that Lord Ye is failing in his role as leader of this estate. You can tell he knows it too, did you see his face during Lord Rong's testimony?" Hikari's delighted laugh echoed through the garden, and Mingzhe's fists clenched. Chenzhou had maintained a neutral facade through most of the testimony, but there had been questions about Finn and his parents that clearly upset him, and he hadn't been able to hide it. Mingzhe wasn't sure what the questions about his parents had to do with anything, but the High Court member who had asked them had been oddly insistent, pressuring Yuze to speculate on the capability and loyalty of Chenzhou's father and mother and hinting more than once that his mother's loyalty may not have been as assured as everyone assumed.
They'd found out about the pendant during their investigation. They'd asked Eirian about it, too. About how much she knew about magic and magical artifacts and the cost of making one.
And why Eirian had destroyed that one when it seemed important enough to warrant further investigation. Eirian's tense answer that she'd had no choice, that purging the poison itself had destroyed the pendant, had only been reluctantly accepted after a comment that she was the only one who would know that.
Mingzhe had barely stopped himself from standing up and shouting in her defense, and he hadn't even been close to her or Chenzhou at that time.
In the end, Eirian had looked suspicious, but not nearly as much as Chenzhou. Mingzhe definitely looked like a traitor, and Yuze somehow looked incompetent.
The Yangs had done even better than they'd expected.
"The end is where it really starts," Hikari assured Mingzhe, pouring him a glass of chilled plum wine. "When they announce their recommendation, it will be to conduct a new investigation into the leadership of the Camelia as a whole. Lord Ye won't be able to oversee it, because he will be the subject of it."
But Eirian couldn't oversee it either. Or Lord Rong or Lord Colfax. Anyone deemed a friend would be eliminated, which would put Chenzhou's fate in the hands of someone who was definitely not.
"Am I even going to be around to see it?" Mingzhe asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He was going to lose his command at the end of this. There was no way around it since nothing presented by the High Court had proven beyond a doubt that he was innocent.
Hikari waved a dismissive hand. "Only for a short time. They never proved you were guilty. Once Lord Ye is removed, it can all be folded into the case against him, and you can return to command."
Mingzhe stared at him. How was Hikari missing something so obvious? "So I'm still a traitor, it's just Chenzhou's fault?"
Hikari nodded and finished off his glass.
Mingzhe had stayed close to him to find a way to stop the Yangs and protect Chenzhou and Eirian. He hadn't ever stopped to think about protecting himself. Hikari had sworn the plan wasn't to destroy Mingzhe, but it seemed like he was going to fall with Chenzhou no matter what. "The Crimson Army will never allow me to return to command, Hikari. Even if it's proven that Chenzhou was at fault." Once a traitor, always a traitor. Bile rose in Mingzhe's throat. He'd been foolish to think there was a way out of this. Even if he found a way to bring down the Yangs, Mingzhe was finished.
Hikari shook his head, still convinced they could make it all go away. "No, once mother is in charge, she'll allow you to return. Everyone will forget what happened in a few years' time. The common folk have terrible memories."
"But not the nobility?" Mingzhe's voice went a little high and shrill as he tried to recalibrate his expectations for the future.
Hikari scoffed. "The nobility will overlook anything if they have a reason to, and everyone who matters knows you didn't do anything wrong."
How did Hikari make it sound so simple? Was that the power, the strength of his delusion?
Mingzhe couldn't fathom how he would be okay accepting that people believed he was capable of treason when he had never done anything of the sort. And he expected Mingzhe to just go back to the way things were and not be bothered by it?
~ tbc