Snow fell that night as if it had forgotten how to hurry.
It sifted onto Yong'an's patched walls, into the cracks of the granary square, onto the treaty copy drying under Ren the scribe's careful weight. It softened edges, but did not hide them.
Ziyan stood on the keep's roof, cloak pulled tight, watching the faint smear of Xia's campfires to the north and the emptier dark to the south where General Sun had vanished with his ragged banner.
"You're shivering," Feiyan said behind her. "That's new. You used to be too angry for cold."
"I'm still angry," Ziyan said. "I've just run out of places to put it."
Feiyan came to stand beside her, boots whispering in the snow. Below, the law tablets hunched like old men stubbornly staying outdoors.
"You did it," Feiyan said. "You told Qi no."
Ziyan's breath ghosted. "I told a weary man on a thin horse no," she said. "Qi itself is… whatever those fires are now."
"You could have used his writ," Feiyan said. "Hidden your treaty with Xia under official outrage. Let him take the blame when the Regent found out."
"He is already carrying enough that isn't his," Ziyan said. "So are we." Her fingers brushed the inside of her cloak until they found the sparrow hairpin, the jade ring, the scratch of Xu Min's cloth. "If we are building something of our own, it cannot start with pretending someone else is responsible."
Feiyan regarded her profile. "You understand this was the last forgiveness," she said. "For Qi. For all of them. The next time one of them tries to use your name, you won't just refuse. You'll cut."
Ziyan's jaw set. "I will not be sold again," she said. "By father, by throne, by ally or enemy. If anyone tries to spend Yong'an like coin, I will make sure they remember the price."
Feiyan smiled, winter-sharp. "Good," she said. "I was starting to worry you'd grown too reasonable."
A bell rang from the south wall, three slow strokes.
"Refugees," Feiyan said, listening. "Sun kept his word."
Ziyan's breath went out in a small white cloud. "Then we start as we mean to go on."
She turned from the emptiness beyond the north and walked toward the noise that was coming to fill it.
They came from the east in a crooked line: carts without wheels, wheels without carts, bundles on backs, children on hips. No banners now, only tatters tied around arms or waists. A few soldiers rode at the edges, General Sun among them, his horse's ribs showing.
Yong'an's south gate opened slow, careful. Han stood on the parapet, Wei and Chen Rui at his sides, archers ranged behind like exclamation points.
"Remember," Han muttered, "if anyone rushes the gate, we argue with him in steel, not words."
"And if they just curse?" Wei asked.
"Then we let them," Ziyan said from the walkway. "If they don't curse today, they'll choke on it later."
Sun reined in just short of the threshold. His men looked worse than yesterday; one horse was riderless, its saddle empty and stiff with old blood.
"As promised," he said. "From three villages east of here. The Regent called them 'acceptable loss' when I asked for grain to feed them. I decided that meant he didn't want them."
The nearest cart held an old man wrapped in quilts, eyes glazed but moving. Behind him, a girl of perhaps twelve clutched a little brother, both of them too still for their age.
"They will call you traitor," Sun said quietly. "They have nothing else left to throw."
"I have been called worse," Ziyan said.
She stepped onto the stone lip just inside the gate so they could see her. Snow clung to her hair, making a faint crown that would have made her laugh in another life.
"I am Li Ziyan," she said, voice carrying. "This is Yong'an. If you step under this gate, you step under our law. It says no one eats while others starve. It says no one is beaten without witness. It says if you disagree with those rules, you argue with us in the square, not with knives in alleys."
A murmur. Faces lifted, pinched and raw.
"And it says," she added, "that we will tell you the truth even when it tastes bad. The wolf banners you see beyond our north wall are not here as mere threat. We made a bargain with them to keep them from turning your homes into what Ye Cheng became. If you stay, you live in a city that has sworn not to harbor Qi's armies. If you leave, we will not hunt you. But we will not lie."
A woman with soot in her hair and a baby on her chest spat at the ground. "Wolves' bride," she hissed. "You sold us to them."
"Probably," Wei muttered. "She signs too many contracts these days."
Ziyan didn't flinch. "When Gaoling asked Qi for help, no one came," she said. "When Ye Cheng burned, they called my writings treason. We stand still because no one else did. If you want to hate me for who I chose to bargain with, do it. But come see the tablets first."
A boy at the back—too old to be carried, too young to hide his eyes—shouted, "I heard you opened Ye Cheng's gates to Xia!"
Feiyan swore under her breath. "Zhang's version has legs."
"I opened Ye Cheng's gates to let the living run," Ziyan called back. "To keep a slaughter from becoming a pile of trapped ash. The wolves walked through anyway. I am building a place where, next time, we have more choices than that."
General Sun watched the exchange with a face that was not as closed as he tried to make it.
An old woman in the second cart struggled to sit up. Her hair was gone to stubble, as if fire had taken it. Her hands shook as she clutched the cart's side. "What do you ask in return?" she croaked.
"Work," Ziyan said. "Obedience to the tablets when they protect your neighbor, not just you. The patience to argue instead of burn. And the understanding that Yong'an will not march to anyone's drum but its own. Not Qi's. Not Xia's. Not mine alone."
The old woman snorted, a sound that might have been laughter once. "I was a midwife," she said. "I've watched kings die like peasants and babies cry in palaces. I've no love for any banner anymore. If your wall keeps wind off my bones and your law lets me slap stupid boys when they beat their wives, I'll learn to spell your name."
Ziyan smiled, small and real. "Then welcome," she said. "The rest of you, decide as you cross. No one will be pushed."