Han rubbed a hand over his face. "You understand what you're doing," he said. "Once you write that, you are… something. Not a village that survived by accident. Not a nest someone else can shake out."
"Yes," Ziyan said. "We are the thing they have already made us in their fears. We might as well be it on purpose."
Ren's brush flew:
By the will of those who walk the Road Under Heaven…
He paused. "What do we call you?" he asked, looking up. "In this."
She thought of all the titles she had worn and shed: minister, traitor, vice this and acting that. Princess once, dishonestly. Bandit, briefly.
"Speaker," she said at last. "First Speaker of the Road City. When there are more of us, I will stop being first."
Feiyan's mouth twitched. "You are very bad at crowns," she observed.
"I have seen too many," Ziyan replied. "This one will be made of clay and argument."
They laughed—hurt, hopeful, disbelieving.
Ren wrote.
…we declare that any hall, farm, ferry, tavern, or town that hangs the sparrow mark and abides by the tablets is under the protection and judgement of the Road City. Our law walks where our people agree it does. Our riders answer where they can. We make no claim on thrones. We claim only this: that those who live by our law shall not be named rebel by anyone without us speaking back.
He looked up again.
"Too long," Wei complained.
"Needs more teeth," Lin Chang said.
"Add teeth later," Feiyan advised. "Send it before Stone Gate's ash blows away."
Ziyan nodded. "Copy it," she said. "On silk for pigeons. On clay for walls. On wood for pockets. And on one stone in this square where everyone can spit on it if they think it foolish."
The midwife grinned. "They'll spit," she promised. "They always do."
Feiyan touched Ziyan's wrist, just above the blue silk.
"You realize," she said, "that once this leaves Yong'an, there's no going back to being just a troublesome town."
Ziyan looked toward the east, where smoke she could not see still insisted on existing.
"I have nowhere to go back to," she said. "Ye Cheng is ash. Qi is ash in waiting. If we are to stand anywhere, it might as well be on something we chose to build."
Far away, in Bai'an, Ren Kanyu would read this proclamation and sigh, then fold it carefully alongside his report for the Emperor. In Qi's Ash Hall, Zhang would eventually receive a smuggled copy and laugh, then feel the floor shift a fraction under his feet.
In Reed Mouth, Aunt Cao would nail a new tile under the tavern beam, this one with more words than usual, and tell anyone who asked that the Road had finally remembered what roads were for.
And in Stone Gate's smoking ruins, the first survivors would stumble toward the old highway, coughing, following rumors: of a city that did not care whose banner their fathers had died under, only whether they could still carry a bowl and an argument.
The Road Under Heaven stretched, invisible and very real, making room.