Lian'er did not know the world was ending.
Children rarely do, and perhaps that is mercy the heavens grant only once.
She sat beneath the persimmon tree behind the clay-walled cottage, feet tucked under her like a small scholar pretending discipline. Snow dusted her hair. It did not melt — winter had grown severe even here in Nan Shu's gentle belly. She pressed her palms together to warm them, then pressed them to her cheeks, then to the sparrow hairpin cradled in her lap.
"Fly soon," she whispered to it, as though the tiny carved wings could hear. "But not yet. There is still porridge."
Madam Wen came with bowls steaming in her rough hands, each set gently, like secrets.
"Eat," she murmured, brushing snow from the child's shoulders. "Clouds fly longest when they rest."
Lian'er nodded solemnly, repeating the words as though they were scripture. She ate dutifully, glance often drifting to the path — a habit no one taught her, but something bones learn when the world becomes sharp. When she finished, she offered a third tiny bowl to the empty place beside her, the same way she did every morning.
"For jiejie," she said. "In case she is hungry where she walks."
Madam Wen's breath trembled. She hid it by rearranging wood in the stove that did not need rearranging.
Rumor had reached even here, carried by traders pretending not to fear.
War in Qi.
A Regent crowned in smoke.
A girl with blue silk and a phoenix mark drawing men like moths to embers.
Madam Wen knew who that girl was. So did Lian'er, though she did not name it aloud.
Children understand truth at the root, not the branch.
"Come inside," Madam Wen murmured, voice like pottery warm from the kiln but still fragile underneath. "The wind listens today. Too closely."
Lian'er rose, clutching the hairpin. She hesitated once, looking north — the direction stories travel from.
"Jiejie is cold," she whispered.
Madam Wen closed her eyes. "Then pray the world remembers her warmth."
Snow fell. A distant drum echoed — not Nan Shu's, not quite Qi's. A border sound, wandering. Neither of them looked back.
Far to the north, the same snow drifted over steel.
Ziyan's cloak snapped in the bitter wind as she stood at the head of a column that no longer pretended to be an escort. It was an army now. Threadbare, hungry, angry — but real. Behind her, banners of three lords and one secret city shivered, colors half-frozen and still defiant. Firelight glimmered off spearpoints like captured lightning.
Her jaw ached from nights without sleep. Her breath fogged in front of her — and did not waver.
Feiyan adjusted the wrappings on her bow arm, finished tying a knot with her teeth, and spat the frayed thread to the ground. "Your little bird thinks of you," she said without looking at Ziyan.
Ziyan did not ask how she knew. Feiyan always knew.
"And I think of her," she replied. "She anchors me."
"She should not have to," Feiyan muttered. "Anchor yourself. Queens do not balance on children's shoulders."
Ziyan's gaze did not soften — but something under it warmed all the same.
"I was not a queen," she said. "Until the world insisted I learn."
Shuye trotted up, snow riding his shoulders like restless ghosts. "Scouts return. Two banners of Xia on the eastern ridge. Zhang's vanguard at the inner fields. They build earthworks on the riverfront."
Wei spat into the frost. "He is digging his throne deeper."
"No," Li Qiang corrected softly. "He digs his grave. He simply does not see the depth yet."
Han rode forward, armor dark and unadorned. "Our men are ready," he said. "If battle comes at noon, they will not break. If battle comes at dawn—"
"It will come at dawn," Ziyan said. "Zhang does not share crowns. He strikes before speeches. Xia strikes when men are tired. The imperial capital is no longer a city — it is the throat of a beast, and both enemies would choke each other in it."
"And you?" Han asked quietly.
"I cut the throat," Ziyan said. Her hand tightened around her reins. "Let them bleed into each other."
The wind turned colder, shriller, like thin iron shrieking. From the hills ahead, torchlight flared — rows of them, marching in precise columns.
Zhang's soldiers. Too many to count easily. More than rumor promised.
Wei rolled his shoulders, spear gleaming. "I hope their god is watching."
"He is," Feiyan murmured. "And he is bored. Let us entertain him."
A horn sounded — Xia's, from the eastern ridge.
Another — Zhang's, from the road to the capital.
Two storms converging. Neither willing to wait for the other.
Ziyan lowered her hood. Blue silk caught moonlight. The jade ring burned cold against her finger.
She thought of Nan Shu's snow.
Of a little girl offering porridge to a ghost-sister on the wind.
Of ashes carved into a crown.
She breathed once, deep and calm and final.
"This is the last time they mistake me for prey."
Feiyan stepped to her side. "And if someone betrays you again?"
Ziyan's voice cut the air clean:
"Then I will bury kingdoms until loyalty grows new."
The first Xia horn split the dawn.
Zhang's drums thundered in answer.
And Ziyan raised her hand — not trembling, not pleading — but commanding.
"Forward," she said.
The army moved.
Snow broke under hooves like bones under judgment.
The world, watching at last, leaned in.
War opened its mouth, and Ziyan stepped into it — not to be devoured, but to tame it.