The palace lamps were lit at noon. Smoke from the east had reddened the sky until even the marble lions at the Meridian Gate seemed to blush with fever. Courtiers whispered about omens and forgot to whisper about orders. Inside the inner hall, the Emperor sat alone with the sound of silk burning somewhere far away.
He had sent his generals home at dawn. Their armor still cooled in the corridor like discarded logic. On the lacquer table before him lay three reports, all written by men who thought he could not read fear between the brushstrokes.
East Crossing: lost.
Supplies from Kai Ford: destroyed.
Lord Han: defected to the traitor Li Ziyan.
He smiled once, briefly. Traitor, the word that kept saving the country.
At last he reached for the thin strip of jade used for private decrees. The ink stick trembled against the stone as though it disliked the scent of decision. When he finished, the letter was only a dozen characters long, folded thrice, sealed with the cinnabar meant for the emperor's own pulse. He summoned no minister, no scribe—only a courier from the old days, one of those who still remembered that loyalty could run faster than breath.
"You will find her," the Emperor said. "Not the regent. Not Zhang. The girl. Give her this. And if you die before the road ends, burn it before their hands find it."
The courier bowed once and vanished into the storm that used to be an empire.
Zhang read the news at dusk. His tent was bright with foreign wine and the glow of a dozen lamps; he preferred his anger visible. The officer kneeling before him had rehearsed his words until they sounded like someone else's, and still they stumbled.
"All three bridges," he said. "The supply train lost. Lord Han of Yong'an now rides under her banner."
Zhang considered the map pinned to the table. Three black stones marked his routes; he flicked one aside with his thumb. "How many escaped?"
"Less than a hundred, Excellency."
"Then you have miscounted." He rose and walked to the tent flap. Outside, wind moved the banners with the irritability of servants. "There are none."
The execution was quiet enough that the guards did not look up. When the officer's body was dragged away, Zhang poured himself another cup.
"She steals wood and fire," he murmured to his adviser. "Let her. When there is no timber left in this land, she will learn what it means to burn alone."
The adviser said nothing. He had already seen the tremor in the Regent's hand—the one Zhang pretended was rage but felt more like fear.
Yong'an had not slept since the couriers' arrival. Every bell seemed to ring half a warning and half a prayer. In the map hall, Ziyan stood before the table while Lord Han, Wei, Li Qiang, Feiyan, and Shuye watched the river of ink that described a dying country.
"The capital closes its gates," Han said. "If we hold here, we buy Qi a week, perhaps two. If we ride east, we join the fires."
Wei snorted. "Hold? We'll drown in our own patience. Let them call us outlaws; at least the road will hear our names."
Li Qiang's eyes traced the line of mountains where the ink grew thin. "The eastern passes are already smoke. Every bridge we broke slowed Zhang, not Xia. Their banners reach the capital by now."
Feiyan crouched by the jar, turning it with her fingers until its warmth faced her palms. "Walls are promises men make to themselves," she said. "Fire doesn't read."
Ziyan listened. The jade ring at her thumb cooled, as if reminding her of balance. "Then we move," she said. "East and south. To Ye Crossing first, where the grain lines from Qi still breathe. If we can cut Xia's advance there, the capital will have a week more breath to learn courage."
Han folded his arms. "And if I refuse?"
Ziyan met his eyes. "Then you will die guarding walls that only remember who built them, not who held them."
The silence that followed was long enough to change loyalty's shape. At last Han nodded. "My riders will follow. But do not mistake this for faith."
"I won't," Ziyan said. "Faith is what we build after the road stops moving."
The messenger arrived before night fell. His horse stumbled twice at the gate and died standing. He carried a white flag cut from a ceremonial robe, and a scroll tube bound with yellow silk. He was too young to have the habit of lying; he bowed to Ziyan as though her name still frightened him.
"From His Majesty," he said. "By his own hand."
Feiyan slit the seal before anyone could advise dignity. Inside lay a single page. Ziyan read it once aloud, because words written in that ink were not meant to hide.
To the one who walks where orders cannot:
The empire owes you nothing, and for that reason I trust you.
If I fall, let my banners burn under your name instead.
—Written in the year that forgot its number.
No signature. Only the faint smear of a thumbprint, human and unceremonious.
Han looked away first. Wei exhaled a low whistle. Li Qiang bowed his head, half in respect, half in mourning.
Feiyan's smile was small, crooked. "He finally learned to write like a traitor."
Ziyan folded the letter and set it in the jar's hollow, where warmth could keep it from despair. "Then we ride for the banners," she said. "If the Emperor cannot speak, we will make the world listen for him."
They rode under a moon that looked polished too often. Behind them, Yong'an's gates closed like a sentence ending. Han's cavalry took the lead, light hooves drumming the frost to dust. Shuye kept count under his breath—bridges gone, wagons burned, nights survived. Wei hummed something that might have been a prayer if he'd believed in gentler gods. Li Qiang checked the sword edge that had outlived six campaigns. Feiyan rode beside Ziyan, eyes half-lidded against the wind.
"The fires ahead," Feiyan said. "They look like cities learning to pronounce their own names again."
"And if they forget?" Ziyan asked.
"Then we teach them," Feiyan said.
They crossed the ridges by dawn. The horizon was already burning—long lines of smoke where Qi's villages had folded into rumor. Refugees trudged westward, faces streaked with ash, clutching the small stubbornnesses people carry when they have nothing left to defend. One old man raised his head as the riders passed and whispered something Ziyan couldn't hear. She wanted to believe it was gratitude. It might have been warning.
By midday, the river returned to view, wide and cruelly calm. On the far bank, banners fluttered in an ordered sea of red and black: Xia's army, stretching until sight turned to faith. The wind brought their drums across the water—slow, patient, imperial.
Wei's horse sidestepped, uneasy. "That," he said, "is not a siege. That's a harvest."
Ziyan drew the Emperor's letter from her sleeve, the paper already soft from travel. "Then let them reap," she said. "We'll see what grows when the soil fights back."
Feiyan looked at her, the faintest ghost of pride touching her voice. "The road wanted a blade," she said. "It found one."
They spurred forward. Behind them, the smoke thinned into a memory the wind would eventually forget. Ahead, the river waited, holding its breath for what might yet be called history.