The city's nights had grown sharper since Zhang's ascension. Torches burned in tighter patrols, drums struck with greater precision, and rumor itself seemed shackled, limping from mouth to mouth. Ziyan moved through it like a shadow taught to breathe quieter than snow. Her hiding place had become a coffin of cedar and iron, each hour more suffocating than the last.
Feiyan's parting words haunted her: your path is a road. Lianhua's silence pressed colder, reminding her that trust could dissolve as quickly as ink in water. She sat with the sparrow hairpin and the silk band, staring at them until dawn's thin light bled through the shutters. She knew what it meant: solitude would strangle her faster than Zhang's soldiers. She had to move.
She chose the shrine by the old river wall. Once it had honored a forgotten river god; now the idol's face was cracked, its offering bowls filled with snow. Ziyan knelt there at dusk, hands pressed to her sleeves, listening to the hollow wind.
Footsteps broke the silence. She did not reach for her blade. The rhythm was familiar, too deliberate to be a soldier's. Out of the gloom came Wei, cloak torn, his arm bound with a strip of cloth darkened by blood. Li Qiang followed, stooped but steady, his eyes scanning the shadows before settling on her.
For a moment, none spoke.
Then Wei gave a half-bow, lips twisting in something close to relief. "I thought the river had already claimed you."
"The river is patient," Ziyan said. "It waits until you no longer notice it pulling."
Li Qiang knelt beside her, lowering his head so their foreheads nearly touched. The gesture needed no words. When he pulled back, his voice was steel wrapped in exhaustion. "The city believes you guilty. Zhang feeds them daily with proclamations. They hang your name in every ward."
"Then let them," Ziyan said quietly. "If the people must hate me to remember me, so be it. What matters is that Zhang does not stand unopposed."
Wei's laugh was sharp, brittle as ice cracking. "Opposed? He has the Emperor's hand. The Guilds bow, the Academies bleed, the barracks chant his name. We are three hunted animals hiding in a broken shrine."
Ziyan met his gaze. "Three is more than none."
Wei looked away first. "You sound like Feiyan."
"Feiyan is gone," Ziyan said, softer than snow. "And Lianhua too. The road no longer waits for old bonds. We must build new ones."
The wind rattled the shrine door, scattering powder across the cracked idol. Wei muttered, "And where do you plan to find such allies, when even your blood disowns you?"
Ziyan pulled a folded scrap from her sleeve. White thread bound it—the mark returned from the cipher network. She laid it on the stone between them. "Listen. This came through the silk. Not all words are Zhang's. Someone whispers beneath the noise."
Li Qiang untied the knot. The note was brief, written in a hand careful not to betray its origin: A noble envoy from Qi lingers in the city. He does not bow to Zhang. He waits for the road to bring him a companion.
The three of them stared at the words. Snow hissed faintly as it touched the shrine's dying coals.
Wei cursed under his breath. "Consorting with Qi is treason."
"Breathing is treason," Ziyan answered. "Eating is treason. Existing is treason. Tell me, Wei—what punishment have they not already written for me?"
Li Qiang's jaw clenched. "It may be a trap. Zhang's web is wide."
"It may," Ziyan agreed. Her hand lingered on the sparrow hairpin, the small weight of Lian'er's safety pressed against her palm. "But if it is not, then the road stretches farther than the court's gates. Zhang owns the Empire's halls, but he does not own the world beyond them."
Wei looked as though he might argue further, then sank down against the wall, his exhaustion betraying him. "And if this Qi noble is no ally at all? If he uses you, or delivers you to Zhang?"
Ziyan's eyes were steady, dark with something that no longer feared betrayal. "Then I will let him try. And if he fails, the road will remember his failure too."
The shrine groaned with the cold. For a long while, only the snow spoke. Then Li Qiang rose and placed his hand on the cracked idol's shoulder. "If you walk this path, I walk with you."
Wei sighed, covering his face with one hand. "And if I must follow fools, then so be it. I will follow."
Ziyan allowed herself a breath that almost felt like warmth. Three was more than none. Three could begin a fire.
They left the shrine before dawn, moving separately, their paths braided by silence. Ziyan kept the note hidden against her chest. Somewhere in the city, amidst Zhang's banners and the Emperor's weary decrees, a noble of Qi waited.
Whether spy, ally, or rival, she did not yet know. But she would know.
At the city gates, drums rolled for another proclamation. A herald shouted the words into the morning: "By Imperial Will, all known associates of Li Ziyan are to be seized and delivered for questioning. Those who shelter her will be stripped of house and honor."
The crowd muttered, fear bitter on their breath. Ziyan, veiled among them, whispered to herself, "They strip honor, but not the road. They cannot strip the road."
Li Qiang, walking several paces ahead, heard her anyway. His hand brushed the hilt of his sword. Wei's eyes flicked to the rooftops, scanning for pursuers.
And the snow kept falling, slower now, as if the heavens themselves paused to watch.
That night, hidden in another forgotten chamber, Ziyan lit her lamp and wrote a new message on plain parchment. She did not beg. She did not cloak her words in riddles. She wrote with the steel of someone who had lost all but the will to cut forward:
I am the one you wait for. Meet me where the river bends to the southern wall. The road remembers.
She tied the silk, her hands steady at last, and passed it to the courier. When he vanished into the dark, she whispered into the emptiness:
"If even the Empire disowns me, then let the road stretch beyond its borders."