The palace bells did not stop.
They tolled through dawn, through the brief blue of morning, and into the slow silver of afternoon, each strike thinning the city's courage. Mourning robes fluttered from balconies, but beneath them merchants still haggled in whispers and soldiers still counted the coins in their pay. Qi had not yet learned how to grieve; it was still deciding who to blame.
Ziyan stood at the base of the palace steps. The banners above her were half-lowered, the color of smoke after rain. Feiyan was a shadow at her shoulder, her mask gone again but her hood pulled high. Behind them, Wei leaned on a pike stolen from a guard who now served tea to the mourners. Li Qiang had not left her side since the Emperor's last breath.
"The court's divided," Feiyan murmured. "Half of them want Zhang to claim the seal, the other half want to pretend he hasn't already taken it."
"And the people?" Ziyan asked.
"They want a name to shout. Any name that keeps the tax collectors confused."
Ziyan smiled, a thin cut of light. "Then let's give them one."
By the third day, the capital's mourning had become theater. Ministers arrived at the Hall in processions that smelled of camphor and calculation. Zhang presided not as regent yet, but as a man already rehearsing the posture. His voice filled the chamber like oil on calm water.
"The Emperor's will," he said, "must be carried out with dignity. Until the rites are complete, the seal remains under my protection."
None argued aloud. Some bowed too deeply; others not enough. Ziyan, standing near the columns, watched the way courtiers measured safety with the angle of their necks.
When Zhang dismissed the assembly, she waited until he was nearly alone. "Protection," she said quietly. "That's what men call it before they build cages."
He turned, smile sharp enough to draw a line. "You mistake me, Lady Li. The realm bleeds. I only bind the wound."
"And when it heals?" she asked. "Do you release it—or keep it as proof you once knew pain?"
His eyes flickered. "You speak like a woman who forgets mercy."
"I speak like one who buried it," she said.
He studied her for a long moment, then inclined his head, half courtesy, half warning. "If you wish to honor the Emperor's memory, return to your province. Teach your people obedience. The capital is no place for ghosts."
Feiyan's hand brushed the hilt of her knife. "Ghosts don't need permission," she said softly.
Zhang left them without answer. His guards followed him with the quiet steps of men who knew history rewarded survivors, not heroes.
That night, Ziyan and her companions gathered in the abandoned library behind the north wing—its shelves empty, its scrolls long burned for warmth during the famine years. The moonlight through the lattices made the dust glow like lost words.
Ren arrived last, cloak heavy with snow. "Letters from the border," he said, spreading damp parchment on the table. "Xia pulls back. They've taken what they wanted—grain, gold, pride. They'll wait now. Watch what we do next."
"Then Zhang will march," Li Qiang said. "He'll need victory to crown his claim."
"Or a scapegoat," Feiyan murmured.
Ziyan looked at the cracked floor tiles where old ink stains still remembered better days. "Then he'll find neither."
Wei snorted. "How?"
"By giving him a story he cannot control," she said. "We'll announce that the Emperor named no heir, but entrusted the people's will to the provinces. Each city will hold council. The roads will carry word faster than Zhang's riders can silence it."
Ren frowned. "That's rebellion."
"It's memory," Ziyan said. "Ash still remembers what burned it."
Feiyan smiled faintly, approving. "You'll need allies who can speak to towns faster than the army can move."
"We'll send Shuye," Ziyan said. "And Wei. No one listens to prophets anymore—but they'll listen to soldiers who survived Ye Cheng."
Wei grinned, almost himself again. "And what of you?"
"I stay here," she said. "Where the silence grows teeth."
Feiyan studied her. "You mean to stand against Zhang alone."
Ziyan shook her head. "Not alone. Just first."
Before dawn, the mourning drums changed rhythm—three slow, one sharp—the pattern reserved for royal funerals that were not entirely natural. From the southern gate, rumors began to crawl: the Emperor had left a second will; Zhang had forged a seal; the Lady Li had been seen speaking with ghosts in the library.
By midday, every rumor contradicted another, and the court began to tear itself politely in half.
Ziyan watched the city from the parapet above the gardens, where frost lay over dead chrysanthemums. The jade ring on her thumb was warm again, the single character inside still whispering: listen.
Feiyan came beside her, pale under the gray light. "It begins."
"Yes," Ziyan said. "And this time, the river isn't the only judge."
Below, the bells tolled again, not for mourning now, but for summoning. Across Qi, cities would hear them and wonder which banners to raise.