The mist thickened after the third night. It came down from the hills like something half-alive, curling through the trees, softening every hoofbeat into confession. They rode until the horses trembled, until even Wei stopped cursing the cold.
By dawn, Nan Shu rose out of the fog — not a city, but a collection of stubborn roofs pressed against the foot of the mountains. Smoke drifted from the chimneys in thin, careful lines, the kind drawn by people who had learned the art of not being noticed.
Ziyan dismounted first. The air smelled of pine resin and frostbitten fruit. Her boots sank into the soft mud that had once been a street. "It hasn't changed," she murmured. "Even the silence feels familiar."
Feiyan's scarf hid her smile. "That's because the silence here isn't fear. It's rehearsal."
They passed through the gate unchallenged. The guards recognized Feiyan, or pretended not to — either was loyalty enough. Inside, the market square was half-empty. A potter sold cracked bowls for coppers; a girl mended nets with fingers too young to know how to stay still.
An old woman stepped from a doorway and bowed. "Mistress Feiyan," she said. "Your room is still yours. And your debts, too."
Feiyan tossed her a coin that glinted like apology. "Keep the room. Keep the debt."
They reached the house at the edge of the forest — half-wood, half-memory. Inside, it smelled of dust, old maps, and cedar smoke. Feiyan pushed open the shutters and the light poured in like a reckoning.
Wei dropped onto a bench, unwrapping his bandages with the care of a man peeling away history. "What now?" he asked. "We hide here until Zhang finishes killing everyone worth killing?"
Ziyan walked to the window, her reflection ghosted over the forest. "No," she said. "We don't hide. We listen."
Ren arrived by dusk, his cloak soaked through, eyes wild with exhaustion and news. "Zhang's coronation is set for the end of the month," he said. "He's declared the Emperor's death a 'divine transition.' He calls himself the Guardian of Qi."
Feiyan laughed, soft and cruel. "Guardians always do."
Ren's expression tightened. "He's also sent riders to every province. He wants your head, Ziyan. There's a reward—enough gold to make peasants remember your face even in their dreams."
Ziyan looked up from the map she'd unrolled across the table. "Then we'll give them a better story to tell."
The map was hand-drawn, ink smudged with use — Zhang's supply lines marked in thin black, his new command posts circled in red. Between them lay forests, old trade routes, and villages that no longer appeared on official records.
"We strike here first," she said, pointing to a crossroads by the old river bridge. "He's moving grain and steel north. We take both. We'll make him feed the people he's trying to starve."
Wei frowned. "And after that?"
"Then we take back the roads," she said. "Every mile between Nan Shu and the capital will remember our name."
Li Qiang's voice was quiet but steady. "And when he comes for us?"
Ziyan's eyes lifted, dark and sharp. "He will. That's the point."
Feiyan leaned against the doorframe, watching her. "You've changed," she said softly. "You used to fight to survive."
"I still do," Ziyan said. "Only now I decide what lives."
That night, they lit no fires. The stars were their lamps, the forest their witness. From the hills, the wind brought the faint hum of distant drums — not from Zhang's army, but from villages awakening one by one.
Shuye joined them near midnight, clothes torn, a cut blooming down his cheek. He knelt by the firepit they hadn't lit and whispered, "The south remembers you. Farmers hide food for you. Merchants whisper your name. You've become what he feared — a story."
Ziyan looked at the horizon, where the dark pressed against the mountains like a wound waiting to reopen. "Stories last longer than kings," she said.
Feiyan came to her side. "And when the story ends?"
Ziyan's hand found the blue silk at her wrist. "It won't," she said. "Not this time."
The moon slid free of the clouds. Horses stamped softly in the yard. Wei snored like an insult to the night. Li Qiang sat sharpening his blade, eyes distant but loyal. Ren slept with ink-stained fingers curled around his pen.
Ziyan didn't sleep. She stood at the window, watching the mist coil and uncoil through the trees. Somewhere beyond the mountains, Zhang's capital glittered under the illusion of safety.
"Never again," she whispered. "You will not take from me twice."
Feiyan heard from the shadows. "Then we begin," she said.
Ziyan turned, and for the first time since Ye Cheng burned, she smiled — not gently, but with the weight of fire learning to love itself.