Xisias

Amber eyes peaked through a curtain of leaves, watching as several people ran to and fro in the courtyard nearby. The child’s hands were covered in dirt, and even his dark hair had allowed leaves to settle in the strands. 

“Young Master! Young Master Yao!”

Yao struggled to hide his giggling as he heard the servants moving around him, not wanting to give away his hiding spot. Of course, he knew they would never find him; after all, this was his favorite game to play when his mother wasn’t around. He knew they would search everywhere for him, fretting and worrying until she returned. His mother, however, knew he would come out as soon as she called for him. 

Once he heard the servants move away, Yao carefully crawled forward, making his way through the dense bushes. Even at only five years old, he had learned how to hide his presence in order to get out of dealing with things he didn’t like, and he noticed how the servants murmured about him possibly being “marked” when he got older. He didn’t understand what it meant, but he did notice how his mother got quiet whenever it was brought up. Yao didn’t like anything that made his mother upset, so he often balled and whined when it was talked about to distract her. 

Yao couldn’t really explain it, but he knew something about him was different. He was easily bored by his cousins, even the ones older than him, and he preferred to spend time by himself. They were so… boring and seemed to not understand when he talked about all the things he noticed. That was why Yao liked to sneak off the estate, and enjoyed going to his own personal little escape. 

After a few more moments of crawling, Yao reached his destination, quickly scrambling to his feet as he reached the lake. It spread as far as his eyes could see, and his grin grew as he ran down to the water’s edge. He quickly threw off his clothes before easily sliding below the surface, searching for a new toy hidden in the mud.

It only took a few moments before Yao found something and he quickly grabbed the hairpin as he swam back to the shore. As soon as he exited the water, he sat on one of the fallen trees, examining his latest treasure. 

It was delicate. thinner than any of the others he had found so far, and surprisingly warm to the touch despite being pulled from the cold lakebed. Yao turned it over in his small, muddy hands, squinting against the sunlight to see the details more clearly. The metal was a dusky gold, aged and darkened in places where the water had not been kind, but beneath the tarnish, he could still make out a pattern etched with remarkable care.

Tiny arcs of wave-like lines circled up the length of the pin, coiling toward a narrow crescent at the top, where a single petal-shaped blade curled slightly outward. The design wasn’t showy like the pieces his aunts wore, weighed down with jade or dangling glass beads. No, this was different. Simple. Sharp. Meant to be hidden, or meant to be used.

Yao brushed a thumb along the curve of the crescent, tracing the way it flared into a serrated edge that looked just dull enough to pass unnoticed. If he angled it just right, the pin caught the light and revealed a faint shimmer along the groove that ran down its spine; almost like a seam, or something that might open if he could only find the right place to press.

“A pin, meant for… poking.” Yao said out loud, deciding to practice describing it. After all, the only reason his mother never reprimanded him for fleeing the servants was because she said he was “smart” for his age, and he didn’t want to disappoint her. “Gold and…no gem.”

Yao continued to play with it in his hands, eventually finding the right groove to press. However, it seemed it was meant for something thin, and Yao frowned as he failed to work his nails into the slot. If only he knew someone who could press it for him, and then he could see what the pin looked like fully open. 

After another moment of messing with the pin, Yao decided to give up, moving over to another of the fallen logs. Yao’s small hands moved with practiced precision as he reached past the brittle flakes of wood, careful not to disturb the delicate balance of moss and dirt that shielded his secret stash. The hollow had once belonged to a burrowing animal, but he wasn’t sure what kind, only that it had long since moved on, leaving behind a space that was just big enough for his collection. 

They were all tucked carefully out of sight, arranged in a way only he understood. His fingers hovered over a jagged piece of mirror, its edges worn smooth by years of river current. He liked how it caught the light, how it made the leaves above shimmer when he tilted it just right. Beside it, nestled into a soft patch of dried moss, lay a bent bronze ring no bigger than his thumb. It didn’t fit any of his fingers, and the band was too plain for anyone to think it had belonged to nobility, but Yao liked it because of the tiny inscription carved on the inside; three characters he couldn’t yet read but had traced over so many times he knew their shape by heart.

Further in, tucked into a knot of bark and clay, was a strange black cord that didn’t fray, no matter how much he picked at it. He had found it wrapped tight around the roots of a tree near the far edge of the lake, where the water stilled and grew dark, and for days afterward he’d felt like something was watching him from the deeper shore. But the cord itself never changed. It never snapped, or stretched, or even seemed to gather dust, and for that alone it had earned a place in his hidden hoard.

But for now, it was the flat piece of metal, no longer than his palm that he reached for, dropping in the hairpin as he pulled it out. He was fairly sure it was part of something bigger, maybe even something broken, since one corner was sheared clean off. It was heavier than it looked, and warm too, just like the pin, which is why he’d buried it deepest, below the layer of bark chips and woven grass. 

Yao sat on the muddy grass as he examined it, unsure why he had wanted to pull it out this time. His mother had always told him to be careful with things he didn’t understand and to be wary of doing anything without knowing why. But Yao had decided long ago that just because something was strange didn’t mean it was dangerous. At least, not to him. He didn’t know what the pieces were, or why they felt like they belonged together but they did. He was sure of it.

He turned it over in his hands, curious if there was something he had missed when he found it. There was a faint mark near the broken edge that caught the light differently than the rest, like a scrape or a burnished groove. He frowned and rubbed it harder with the heel of his palm, but the spot remained, shimmering faintly in a way that reminded him of fish scales or oil on the surface of still water. It wasn’t writing like what was on the ring, but it reminded him more of a fingerprint, as if someone had pressed or branded their touch deep into the metal, now dulled by time.

Yao tilted it slightly, then gasped. There! For the briefest instant, the groove near the broken edge lit with a faint, amber glow. A thread-thin seam pulsed beneath the surface, not visible unless held at precisely the right angle. He tried to find it again, turning it back and forth, squinting. But the glow didn’t return.

“Fine.” Yao pouted, sitting up to shove the metal back into his hidden stash. He needed to wash off the mud and redress before his mother returned to their residence. After all, it was hard to know what kind of mood she would be in when she returned from the main house, but Yao knew she was always happy to see him when he finally came out of hiding. 

It only took Yao a few minutes to wash and get dressed, doing his best to fix up his clothing so no one would know he had undressed. Once he was satisfied, he cast one last look back as his stash before he began crawling back to the estate.