The doors at the far end scraped again. Another figure entered, cloaked in black edged subtly with pattern—court embroidery for those who liked to call themselves discreet. His retinue smelled of ink and impatience. The envoy bowed as if gravity had noticed him personally.
"My lord," he said with sorrow's courtesy. "We regret to force your hand."
Feiyan's weight shifted in a way only three men noticed. Ziyan did not turn; she heard the soft place inside the envoy's voice, the place where knives are fed.
Lord Han stood. "You bring your master's words to my hall," he said. "Good. You will bring mine back."
"My lord?" Confusion made the envoy briefly honest.
Han looked at Ziyan. "If I arrest you now, Regent Zhang will throw me a bone and teach my dogs to sit. If I do not, he will learn to pronounce the word 'enemy' properly again." He glanced at the jar. "What can you offer me that weighs more than a bone?"
"History," Ziyan said. "And hunger—his, not yours. Give me a night under your eaves. By dawn, you will receive news that makes Zhang eat his own proclamations."
Han's advisors murmured the way brush whispers before it splits. The envoy's mouth found a line that had been tattooed there years ago: pity turned into threat.
"We cannot allow—" he began.
"Allow?" Feiyan said, and her knife was suddenly between one heartbeat and the next, its point resting against the lacquer at the envoy's ribs. No one had seen her move, including the man whose breath forgot itself.
"You are in a cavalry lord's hall," she said. "Words here ride better when they arrive without a bridle."
Steel rasped as four guards half-drew; Li Qiang's sword finished drawing with a decision that suggested anyone else should think harder. Wei did not bother with elegance—he stepped into the nearest guard and made the man re-evaluate his relationship with standing. Shuye did nothing and somehow looked like he had rearranged three items in the room to make outcomes truer.
"Enough," Lord Han snapped, and the room returned to the table like dogs called off meat. He stared at the envoy until the lacquer remembered it was not armor. "You will wait in the south chamber," Han said. "Eat my food. It may teach you respect."
The man bowed, gray with rage he dared not name. He left with steps that promised someone else would pay for this room's rudeness.
When the door shut, Han's hand relaxed by the width of a finger. He did not sit.
"Princess," he said, as if testing the word on a horse he might someday decide to ride. "You have one night. If dawn brings me nothing but poetry, I will take your wrists with my own hands. If it brings me a reason to feed my horses on the Regent's pride, I will lend you saddles."
Ziyan bowed, deeper than before. "Then let us write dawn."
He gestured, and the hall emptied itself of everyone worth less than the next hour. When they were alone but for the guards who had learned how to be furniture, Han leaned closer.
"You understand what I admire," he said. "Not piety. Effect."
"Then ask for it," Ziyan said. "Plain."
"A supply train left Kai Ford two nights past," Han said without flourish. "If it reaches the siege lines, Lucheng is a story we will not enjoy retelling. My scouts can mark the road and do nothing more with the men I can spare without declaring my banner. Cut the wagons. Leave me their wheels."
Feiyan's eyes took on a new light: the satisfaction of a blade given work meant for its shape. "How many carts?"
"Twelve," Han said. "Guarded by men paid well enough to be alert. They ride under dark flags. They pretend to be road-menders."
Shuye laughed softly. "Then we will make them mend the road with their teeth."
Wei tested the weight of his spear, hunger making a new home in his shoulders. Li Qiang's nod was a door closing against reluctance. Ziyan rested her palm on the jar's lid and felt Madam Wen's thumbprint under her skin.
"We'll need fresh horses," she said. "Pitch jars. Rope. And men who can carry a message faster than it tries to be heard."
"Take what you ask," Han said. "Bring me a reason to say no to men who have forgotten how to ask me at all."
They left the hall into a wind that had not agreed to be less cruel. Stable boys blinked at Feiyan's list and produced fast geldings with the offended pride of good stock. Shuye chose six small jars and a larger one, patting them like cousins. Han sent a sergeant with a scar that did not advertise itself and five riders whose eyes had learned to take orders without discussing them with their mouths.
They rode before the moon finished deciding whether to be full. The path to Kai Ford threaded low hills and old orchards whose frost-bitten trees still remembered the grammar of hiding. Feiyan scouted ahead, a grey smear that belonged to no man's map. Shuye and the sergeant worked quietly, setting snares where wagons would choose the easier rut, thinning brush where fire would like to run.
They reached the narrowest point when the river's fog decided to join them. Sound grew shy. Ziyan loosened the knife at her hip and listened. The jade ring cooled her thumb: listen, it insisted, as if it had taught the word to the night itself.
Hooves. Many, but in a rhythm that said carts forced men to be patient.
Feiyan's hand lifted once—go. Wei and the riders melted into the ditch. Li Qiang took the higher ground and became a tree that would be inconvenient to forget. Shuye planted the last jar, buried under scraped leaves, its fuse a pale thread like a spider's forgotten wisdom.