Behind Yizhen, Gaoyu had four men trussed like bundles on poles.
One had the bad idea of finding his feet. He met Shadow's teeth without blood, just a noise that told the body to remember whose road this was. He remembered. He sat back down on his own bones.
"You left them alive?" I asked, cocking my head as I looked past Lin Wei's shoulder.
"Only enough to write a name," Gaoyu shrugged, his eyes briefly looking over to Mingyu who had said silent until now. "If they're slow about the ink, we'll loosen their hands."
"No." The word was flat as Mingyu looked at the men. "Hands are for work. Tongues can do the writing. That way they aren't dumb enough to go too greedy with knives." His tone was completely cold, and I knew that I wasn't the only one dancing on a thin line of sanity.
Gaoyu grunted assent and kicked frost off his boot heel in a little circle that meant he was bored with mercy but would wear it for me.
I looked back to Yizhen.
