The drums began before dawn. Not the deep mourning drums of the Emperor's death, but the smaller, quicker kind—the ones used when soldiers were ordered to seal the city gates. Ziyan knew the rhythm before she opened her eyes. Betrayal had a sound.
Feiyan entered without knocking. Her scarf was unwrapped, her face raw with wind. "He's moved faster than we thought. Zhang called a full assembly. They say he's to receive the seal in the Emperor's name."
"Whose name will he use when mine comes up?" Ziyan asked.
Feiyan looked away. "Yours is already written. They're saying you forged the second will—that you and Minister Li plotted the Emperor's death."
Ziyan rose. The robe she wore was plain, traveler's cut, easy to move in. "Then we end it properly."
Li Qiang and Wei were already waiting in the corridor, blades hidden under mourning sleeves. Han had sent a message before dawn: soldiers loyal to Ziyan were being disarmed, their posts reassigned. Ren had disappeared, and Shuye's note from the southern ward had arrived torn in half, a smudge of blood where a seal should have been.
They moved through the inner courtyard in silence. The winter light was thin, too honest. When they reached the Hall of Rites, the doors were open and the air stank of wax and ceremony. Zhang stood at the dais, the Emperor's seal on the table before him, its jade sides freshly washed and drying like a trophy.
"Lady Li," he said, his voice clean and cold. "The court convenes to hear the matter of treason."
Ziyan stepped forward until her shadow touched the first stair. "Then hear it."
A murmur rippled through the officials. Some looked at her with pity; most looked with relief. Someone was about to fall, and they were glad it would not be them.
Zhang lifted a parchment. "The forged decree, naming you successor to His Majesty's will. Signed in an unknown hand, found in your chambers. Your father, Minister Li, confessed to conspiring with you. He lies in the North Tower awaiting sentence."
Li Qiang's hand went to his sword, but Ziyan stopped him with a glance. "My father has confessed to everything except truth," she said.
"Then confess it yourself," Zhang said. "The realm needs unity. Say the words, and perhaps the court will remember mercy."
Ziyan smiled—not the kind that softens, but the kind that cuts. "Mercy? You killed the word the moment you forged your first edict."
Gasps fluttered through the hall. Feiyan moved closer, every muscle ready.
Zhang leaned down slightly, voice dropping to a private murmur meant to humiliate. "You will not leave this hall alive."
"Then I will leave it remembered," Ziyan answered.
A soldier moved behind her, blade half-drawn. Wei's spear flicked like punctuation; the man fell before he could speak. Chaos cracked the air. Ministers stumbled backward, robes tangling in their own fear.
Feiyan threw a smoke jar—one of Shuye's gifts. It burst in a hiss of white and cedar. By the time the smoke cleared, the dais was empty. The guards shouted through the haze, but Ziyan and her companions were already gone, swallowed by the passageways beneath the Hall—old escape tunnels built when kings still expected revolt.
They emerged into the stables, the horses restless as if they, too, had smelled the court's rot. Feiyan mounted first, her scarf tied tight again. "They'll close the gates in minutes," she said.
"Then we leave before the city remembers it's afraid," Ziyan said.
They rode through the northern quarter, through alleys that still reeked of incense from the Emperor's vigil. Bells clanged, echoing their own names back at them.
At the final gate, a squad blocked the road—soldiers wearing Zhang's crest. Their captain raised a hand. "In the Regent's name—stop!"
Ziyan reined in, eyes on the man's badge. He couldn't have been more than twenty. "Do you know whose name you speak?" she asked.
"The Regent's," he said, uncertain now.
"There is no Regent," she said, voice low and certain. "Only the memory of a coward."
Then she spurred her horse. Wei's spear struck first, Feiyan's blade second, and Li Qiang's silence third. The young captain's hand slipped from his sword. The gates opened as if the hinges had remembered mercy.
They didn't look back until the city had fallen to a shadow behind them. The banners on the palace roof were just specks of smoke against the sky.
Feiyan pulled her horse alongside Ziyan's. "You know what this means. He'll name you a usurper. You'll never walk openly again."
Ziyan's voice was calm, almost tender. "Then let the world walk for me."
Wei spat blood into the road. "We have nowhere to run."
"We don't run," Ziyan said. "We ride to the border. To Nan Shu. To the ones who still remember the road."
Feiyan studied her, something like pride softening the hard lines around her mouth. "And when Zhang falls?"
Ziyan looked ahead. The horizon was pale with frost, the wind carrying the scent of distance. "Then no one will ever betray me again. Not because they fear me—because they'll learn what it costs."
Li Qiang said nothing. The sound of their horses filled the silence between promises.
When the road dipped into the valley, Ziyan looked back one last time. The capital's towers were fading, the smoke from its pyres rising straight and cold.
She touched the blue silk at her wrist, the knot drawn tight. "Never again," she whispered. "Not by him. Not by anyone."
Feiyan heard, but didn't answer. Some oaths don't need witnesses—they only need to be kept.
By nightfall, the riders vanished into the southern mist. Behind them, the drums changed rhythm again: no longer for mourning, but for war.