Later, in the war room—a smaller chamber, its walls still lined with maps half-burned and half-salvaged—Han tapped a charcoal-stick against the table. "This is madness," he said. "You're building a council that can chain you. And you want to fight Xia with a city arguing with itself."
"A city that has never argued is already dead," Ziyan replied. "I'd rather fight with noise than with unquestioning quiet."
Feiyan leaned over the map, stabbing a finger at the eastern passes. "Madness or not, the wolves come this way." She traced the route of their last scout. "Three main columns. One smaller detachment slipping along the river. If I were their general, I'd send that one to seize the bridges north and then pinch us from the back."
"If you were their general," Wei muttered, "we'd all be dead already."
Shuye peered at the scribbled terrain. "The river is still half-frozen. They'll trust it more than they should."
"Good," Ziyan said. "Then we teach them humility."
She turned the map so the others saw it from her angle: the city at the center, the river bending like a question, the passes like narrow throats. "We cannot win by drowning them in steel. We win by drowning their certainty. We let them think they have us surrounded, then open the circle under their feet."
Li Qiang nodded slowly. "Draw them close to the walls, strike their supply tail, then cut them from their own border."
"Exactly," she said. "Feiyan, you take your knives and disappear into their shadows. Cut their scouts' tongues. Shuye, prepare the river again. If we cannot break their army, we can starve it, freeze it, and make it doubt its own maps."
Feiyan's mouth quirked. "And you?"
Ziyan touched the hilt of her sword. "I stand where they can see me. Let them bring every arrow they wish. If they kill me, at least they'll empty their quivers."
"Do not joke about that," Li Qiang said quietly.
She looked at him. "I am not joking. I am planning."
Night found her on the palace roof.
The city beneath slept badly—lamps flickering in too many windows, dogs barking with no conviction, the occasional clatter of a dropped pot sounding louder than war drums at midday. Snow had stopped; the clouds had thinned. Stars showed through, cold and disinterested.
Feiyan climbed up after her, footfalls light. "You never did learn how to rest."
"Rest is for when roads end," Ziyan said. "Mine hasn't."
Feiyan looked out across the broken tiles, the distant line of the eastern hills. "When Xia comes, some of our people will waver," she said. "They will ask why we didn't take the offer. Why you didn't let another crown rule this mess."
"They already ask," Ziyan said. "Good. Let them. Questions are a better shield than fear."
"And if someone answers with a knife in your back?" Feiyan's tone was even, but her fingers tightened around the edge of the roof.
Ziyan's jaw set. "Then I'll die knowing it was the last time I was betrayed."
Feiyan was silent for a moment. "You've said that before."
"I meant it before," Ziyan said. "I mean it more now."
Below, a patrol passed with soft clinks of armor. Somewhere beyond the walls, an owl loosed a question into the dark.
Feiyan spoke again, very quietly. "If anyone here turns on you," she said, "I will kill them before the knife lands. I don't care if they're lord, soldier, or village elder. Or someone you once loved."
Ziyan turned her head. The wind tugged at stray hairs near her face. "Even me?"
Feiyan's eyes held hers. "If you betray yourself, I'll drag you back until you remember who you are. Then we'll argue properly."
The laugh that escaped Ziyan was small but real. "Good."
She looked east. On the horizon, a faint orange smear broke the clean line of night.
Campfires. Marching.
"They're close," she said.
Feiyan narrowed her eyes. "Three days. Maybe two, if they push through the night."
"They'll push," Ziyan said. "They think we're cornered."
"We are," Feiyan replied.
Ziyan's fingers found the blue silk on her wrist, thumb brushing the knot. "Corners can be useful. They show you exactly where you stand."
The next day, rumors moved faster than messengers.
Someone in the market swore they had seen a phoenix fly over the eastern wall at dawn, wings made of flame and ash. Someone else insisted they'd heard the old Emperor's voice in the drums, telling them to trust the girl with no crown. A child drawing in the soot near the granaries traced a bird with outstretched wings and wrote beneath it, in uneven strokes: Not king. Road.
Ren brought that scrap to Ziyan in the afternoon. "They're starting to call you things," he said.
She took the charcoal-smeared cloth and studied it in silence. The bird was clumsy. The words were not. "Let them call me what they need," she said. "Just make sure they remember what they promised themselves, not me."
"Which is?" Ren asked.
"To never kneel lightly again."
That evening, the first true scouts of Xia reached the outer farms.
Feiyan killed one before he finished counting the city towers and let the second slip away with a shallow cut and a terror that would do more work than death. Wei's men ambushed a small patrol at a frozen ford, left their bodies in a careful line pointing back east. Shuye lit three braziers along the riverbank in a pattern only Ziyan's commanders knew: one for enemy movement, two for numbers, three for readiness.
From the wall, Ziyan watched the distant glint of spearpoints. An empire approached, convinced it was about to collect a broken prize.
She did not feel ready. No one honest ever did.
Feiyan came to stand beside her, hands tucked into her sleeves. "Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow," Ziyan said.
"And after tomorrow?" Feiyan pressed.
Ziyan answered without looking away from the slow, inexorable advance. "After tomorrow, no one in this land will mistake me for prey again. Not Xia. Not whatever comes after. Not my own people. Betrayal has had its feast. Now it pays the bill."
The wind cut across the wall, sharper than any blade they'd sharpened that day. It smelled of snow, old blood, and something else.
Possibility, perhaps.
Or the first breath of a world about to be forced to learn a new shape.