The Emperor studied him as one might study a tool that may be used only once. "You will swear this before Heaven's table," he said.
"I will swear it before my wife," Wang Yu answered, and a tired laugh found an honest way out among the generals. "Heaven does not do the shopping."
The envoy's mouth almost turned into a smile; Feiyan's did not—but the corner of her eye gentled.
The Emperor gestured. A small table was brought, the tiny brazier on it lit. The Oath Book lay open. Wang Yu set his hand upon it and spoke the names as carefully as he had counted grain; he dated the orders, listed the routes whose dust still lived on his boots, told where oil had replaced ink and which signatures had been learned late in life. When he finished, he signed with the same pen he used to feed towns.
A minister in blue snorted. "An oath from a clerk and a jar from a potter. We are to set war by household craft?"
"Household craft built the house you shelter in," Shuye said before anyone could catch his sleeve. "Pottery holds water. Ledgers hold proof. Neither breaks for your convenience."
Several heads swung toward the Emperor, expecting rebuke. He let the words settle like silt until the river ran clear again.
"You bring me cause," he said to Ziyan. "What you do not bring me is time. Xia takes cities while we discuss whose paper is honest."
"Then let paper be a weapon," Ziyan said. "Not a comfort. Publicly expose Zhang's theft in every market town that still sells bread. Send riders with proclamations that carry these names to men who have forgotten how to be ashamed. If Liang's neutral lords learn they will be made to pay for his theft, they will remember caution. If your soldiers learn they were starved on purpose, they will fight to abolish the cause, not merely the effect."
"And in the meantime," the Prime Minister said with a snake's patience, "Qi bleeds itself further by trusting a foreign fugitive."
Ziyan faced him, calm as a blade before it is drawn. "Trust the ledgers. Trust the clerk who risked his door. Do not trust me. Use me."
A small sound, like an old nail settling in its timber, came from the throne. The Emperor's expression had not changed, but something in the air recognized a decision as it arrived.
"General Han," he said without looking away from Ziyan, "prepare two proclamations: one for our own cities, naming the theft and the thieves; one for Liang's border towns, promising grain at cost to those who hold their gates against Zhang's orders. Treasurer, find the coin—steal it from my own rooms if you must. Envoy—" now he did look, and the envoy inclined his head "—you will carry copies to the lords who still think neutrality is a way to live through fire."
"And the fugitive?" the Prime Minister insisted.
The Emperor's gaze cooled without narrowing. "Will speak with me again when the hall sleeps," he said. "Then we will decide what fugitive means."
The hall dissolved into controlled movement: maps gathered, orders coughed into life, scribes' brushes scratching like insects. Ziyan felt the jar's warmth through the cloth as if it had a pulse. Feiyan stood close enough to be felt without touching. Wei exhaled—the first honest breath since the southern gate; Li Qiang's shoulders lowered by the width of a thought. Shuye watched the ministers with a potter's disdain for men who believed heat was invented for their comfort.
They were led to a side chamber with a brazier and no adornment. Tea arrived that steamed less quickly into the cold. The Emperor entered without escort, carrying no seal—only the weariness he had refused the hall. He sat. He did not make them kneel. It was the most political kindness of the night.
"Ye Cheng," he said, as if the name might yet take a different shape out loud. "It is yours?"
"It was," Ziyan said. She kept her voice still. "I learned to count on its steps, to lie under its windows when summer pretended to be kind. My mother bought ginger there when there was nothing else to buy. It is ash now."
"And you have not wept," the Emperor observed.
"Not where it would make me slow," she replied.
He regarded her for a long breath. "Do you seek revenge or remedy?"
"Yes," Ziyan said.