The pigeons flew more often after that.
From Yong'an to Haojin. From Haojin to Bai'an. From Qi's archive to the Road's scribes. From a clerk's unremarkable desk in the Ministry to a kiln behind a carpenter's shop where Madam Wen wiped ash from her hands and read of border towns in other people's handwriting.
Ziyan stood under Yong'an's gate one afternoon as Ren's latest report was read aloud to a small circle of those who had begun to think beyond the city's walls.
"Three more villages along the Xia side of the river have adopted your 'no seizing without record' rule inside their taverns," Ren wrote in his dry soldier's script. "Two lords curse it, one pretends he thought of it first. No riots. Fewer broken noses. Grain shipments to Bai'an have increased by one-tenth. Draw whatever conclusions you like."
Han grunted. "He writes like a man trying not to admit he's impressed," he said.
"He's counting for his Emperor," Ziyan said. "Which is more than Qi's did for us."
Feiyan, who had just arrived with her own scrap of news, snorted. "Bai'an's hall is full of men arguing whether you are a disease or a vaccination," she said. "It's adorable."
Wei scratched his cheek. "What's a 'vaccination'?" he asked.
"Something you swallow so you don't die later," Shuye said. "Like bitter medicine. Or bad tea."
"Exactly," Feiyan said. "Some of Xia's lords think if they let a little Road law fester on the border, it'll keep their peasants from catching the bigger rebellion when it comes."
Ziyan's mouth twisted. "Let them think that," she said. "So long as the law itself learns to walk, I don't much care who thinks they own its shadow."
Ren's second line was shorter, ink pressed a fraction deeper.
The Emperor has refused Zhang's invitation to joint pacification. For now, you are a question he prefers to study rather than a problem he wishes to smash. Do not mistake this for friendship. It is… a pause.
Ziyan's thumb worried the edge of the tablet she carried. "We live in pauses," she said. "Between sieges. Between edicts. Between someone else's plans."
Feiyan's gaze slid to the sparrow carved above the nearest door. "You could use the pause," she said. "To decide something you've been avoiding."
"Which is?" Ziyan asked, although she knew.
"Whether you keep letting other people call you 'proto-kingdom'," Feiyan said bluntly, "or whether you start using the word yourself."
The square was quiet enough that even the pigeons seemed to listen.
Han shifted his weight. Zhao raised his brows. Chen Rui rolled her shoulders. Ren the scribe, cruel man that he was, scooped a fresh tablet into his lap without being asked.
Ziyan looked at them: fighters, traders, scribes, midwives, ex-captains, potters, exiles. People who had taped themselves together with this strange thing called law and then discovered it was stronger than anyone's old banners.
"Not today," she said.
A faint sigh, relief and impatience braided.
"But soon," she added. "If we keep being treated as a kingdom by men hungry for other people's land, we may as well decide what kind we mean to be."
Wei groaned. "More meetings," he said.
"More tablets," Ren corrected.
"More chances to argue," Lin Chang said, healthier than she had sounded in years. "I'll bring wine."
Feiyan watched Ziyan's face.
"You swore," she said quietly, "that the last time you would be betrayed without answer was behind Qi's walls. You've kept that oath. But if you don't put a name to what you are building, someone else will. Zhang. Xia. Men who like tidy stories."
Ziyan's fingers closed around the jade ring, the hairpin, the memory of Ye Cheng's ash.
"Then when we name it," she said, "it will not be in their halls."
Ren's brush scratched on clay.
"Title?" he asked.
No one answered at once. The word hung in the air, waiting to be earned.
The Road Under Heaven listened, stretching under their feet, amused that people thought it needed a title at all.
For now, it was enough that the next pigeons knew where to fly