They moved quickly. Shuye took the leader's horse, whose loyalty had been purchased cheaply. Feiyan cut strips from cloaks and tied wrists and ankles with the tidiness of a woman who hates loose ends. Wei heaved the sleeping messenger onto the bank where the frost would keep him honest for a while. Ziyan checked the sling and felt the jar answer the touch with the steady heat of Madam Wen's kiln, an echo from a city that made bowls instead of graves.
"Next time we avoid inns with fresh ink," Wei grumbled, wiping his spear on clean snow.
"Next time we make the ink ours first," Ziyan said.
They did not speak again until the ridge fell away and the road bent into a stand of pines whose needles hardly moved in the wind. When they stopped, it was to let the horses drink and to let their own breath catch up with them. Feiyan rose on the balls of her feet, eyes on the far tree line as if considering the physics of shadows.
"You did not panic," she said to Ziyan without looking.
"I have run out of room for panic," Ziyan said. It surprised her to hear that it was true.
Night found them in a hollow where someone had once tried to farm mushrooms and given up. They lit a small, sulking fire under a rock ledge and ate rice cakes that had grown philosophical with travel. Shuye traced a map in ash, marking where the drum towers would be if men had built them sensibly, and where they actually were. Wei whittled a stick that did not need whittling and did it very well. Li Qiang walked the ring around the camp until the ring agreed to hold.
Ziyan sat with the jar near her knee and the jade ring cold on her thumb, thinking about lords who bent for wind and how to make the wind blow usefully. "Which house first?" she asked at last.
"Lord Meng of Lucheng," Li Qiang said from the dark. "Old. Proud of how not corrupt he is. Values reputation over comfort. He hates Zhang the way men hate mirrors that tell the truth."
"Or Lord Zhao of Pingyuan," Wei countered. "Young, ambitious, likes to think he can ride any horse. He will listen if he thinks listening will make him look taller."
"Or neither," Feiyan murmured. "Start with someone who has learned to be afraid properly. Fear teaches men to remember doors." Her eyes slid to Shuye.
"Lord Meng keeps his cellar stocked like a temple," Shuye said after a beat. "If you want the servants to whisper your name, pay the wine boy. Lord Zhao cheats at dice. If you want the guards to open the gate, let them win."
Ziyan smiled, small and mean. "Then we will play both games."
They doused the fire until it sulked itself out. The night leaned in and found itself weighed and found wanting. The road lay like a vein ready to bear.
It was full dark when the messenger found them—if he could be called a messenger. He came on foot, breath fogging, boots torn, cloak too thin for the frost, carrying no seal and wearing a face that had learned urgency the hard way. Feiyan's knife was in her hand and out of sight; Li Qiang's shadow had already circled behind the man before he understood he had reached anyone at all.
"I… from the envoy," he panted, clutching his ribs. "From Qi."
Ziyan rose but did not step forward. "Speak."
He nodded, coughed, steadied himself the way men steady buckets they cannot afford to drop. "Word from the northern scouts. Xia gathers at Gaoling. Two banners, maybe three. If Liang breaks there, it will open the road to the provincial seat and cut the grain to three prefectures. The envoy says—" His mouth struggled around the next part, a messenger who had never been asked to deliver advice to a storm. "—the envoy says if you mean to turn lords, you must turn them now. By the next moon, talking will be begging."
Silence claimed the hollow and stood there, proper as a doorkeeper waiting to be fed. Wei swore under his breath in a way that blessed no one. Shuye's grin vanished and did not come back. Li Qiang's hand tightened on his sword hilt, a quiet that promised work.
Feiyan looked at Ziyan, and for once her eyes held neither winter nor mercy, only a clear mirror. "The hunt is already running," she said.
Ziyan touched the jar with the back of her fingers, feeling its steady warmth as if it were a living thing that believed her. She looked north, where the dark piled itself into larger shapes. The jade ring cooled her again, the inside character a command she had chosen to obey.
"Then we start tonight," she said. "Lord Meng's name first. Lord Zhao's gate second. And if Zhang wants to pay men to sell their eyes, let them watch something worth the money."
She lifted her hood and the road, hearing itself recruited into purpose, seemed to straighten. The fire had gone to ash. The ash did not mind. It had learned to wait until someone asked it to tip a kingdom.