The fog had not yet broken when they moved. Nan Shu still slept under its own breath, roofs beaded with dew, dogs dreaming of easier centuries. The riders left no trail — only the sound of leather on frost and the faint heartbeat of hooves learning patience.
Ziyan led them. Her cloak was unmarked, her hair tied back with a strip of the same blue silk that had once meant survival and now meant command. Behind her rode Feiyan, hood drawn low, twin knives strapped across her back like parentheses. Wei and Li Qiang took the flanks, Shuye and Ren the rear. They were not an army yet. They were a sentence, half-spoken, waiting for the right ear.
The target lay two valleys north: a convoy of twelve wagons, grain for Zhang's garrisons, escorted by forty men who had learned obedience faster than courage. The carts would reach the bridge at dawn, when the mist was weakest and faith strongest.
By the time the first wheel reached the plank, Ziyan's signal sounded — a small bird's call, wrong for winter.
Shuye's jars went first, rolling from the slope like forgotten toys. They cracked against the stones, spilling fire that hissed white and blue. The lead oxen panicked, the line behind them folding like a serpent biting itself.
Wei's spear struck the nearest guard clean through the shoulder, pinning him to the railing. Li Qiang's sword whispered across the air, quick and precise; two men dropped before they realized they'd been chosen. Feiyan landed in the center of the smoke, twin blades finding throats with the ease of memory.
Ziyan walked through it all. She did not run. She moved the way storms move when they already know the outcome. Her blade found the convoy captain, a man wearing Zhang's crest on a chest too proud to bend.
"Who do you serve?" she asked.
"The Regent," he gasped.
"Then serve him this," she said, and drove the sword through his flag. When she drew it free, it carried both cloth and blood.
The battle lasted minutes. When the smoke cleared, the road was a mosaic of ash and grain. The wagons burned with a sound like applause.
Shuye knelt by the largest cart, prying open its lid. Inside, beneath sacks of millet, lay rows of sealed letters — dispatches for Zhang's generals. He held one up to the light, eyes widening. "He's calling reinforcements from the north. He means to march on Nan Shu himself."
"Then he'll find an empty nest," Feiyan said. "And a forest full of knives."
Ziyan stood at the bridge's edge, the wind lifting her cloak. "No," she said. "He'll find witnesses. We'll leave one cart untouched — full and ready. Let him hear that his own grain feeds the south now."
Wei grinned, teeth bright in the soot. "A gift, then?"
"A reminder," Ziyan said. "That what he builds, I can unmake."
They left the bridge burning behind them. The smoke drifted toward the north like a messenger who did not need to rest.
By nightfall, they were back in Nan Shu. The villagers gathered in the square, drawn by rumor and light. Ziyan climbed the old stone steps of the shrine that no one prayed to anymore. Feiyan lit a single torch and held it beside her.
"The Regent calls me traitor," Ziyan said. Her voice carried cleanly, the way steel carries when struck. "He burns fields and names. He claims the Emperor's peace while he sells the people's breath for silver. So hear me now: Qi is not his to keep. The road is not his to close. From this night forward, every village that feeds itself feeds rebellion. Every fire we light will eat his throne a little smaller."
The crowd was silent for a heartbeat. Then someone cried her name — once, twice — until it became chant and oath. Ziyan. Ziyan.
Feiyan watched her from the edge of the torchlight, eyes unreadable. When the voices swelled high enough to shake the eaves, she said quietly, "You've started it."
Ziyan looked over the faces before her — tired, scarred, alive. "No," she said. "They have."
Later, when the noise had faded and the square emptied, Ziyan stood alone by the dying torch. Feiyan joined her, hands still smelling faintly of pitch.
"You know he'll come for you himself now," Feiyan said.
"I want him to," Ziyan replied. "Let him bring every soldier he owns. Let him think the south is small."
Feiyan studied her face, the soft flicker of flame painting her eyes gold. "And when he learns it isn't?"
"Then the road will teach him what I already swore," Ziyan said, touching the silk on her wrist. "That betrayal ends with me."
They stood there until the torch burned itself honest. Above them, the first snow of the season began to fall — quiet, deliberate, as if the sky itself was listening.
In the distance, from the north, came the faint echo of horns. Zhang's armies were marching.
Ziyan turned toward the sound, her breath steady. "Let them come," she said. "The fire's already waiting."