The first snow did not stop the armies; it only hid them.
Zhang's banners appeared on the northern ridges by the fifth day — black against white, arrogant against reason. He had come with twelve thousand men, iron carts, and the confidence of someone who had forgotten what roads remember.
From the high pass, Feiyan watched them through a glass tube stolen from a scholar's chest. "Too many," she said. "Too proud."
"Both can be used," Ziyan replied. Her breath made no cloud; she had long since learned to breathe like the weather. "They'll move by the river, faster ground for the wagons. We'll let them think it's safe."
"Then what?" Wei asked, crouched near the rocks, spear resting on his knees. "We bleed them until they notice?"
"No," she said. "We bleed their shadow. Let them notice only when it's too late to turn around."
Below, Zhang's army moved like a dark flood. Drums beat the rhythm of obedience, not courage. His officers barked orders until their voices lost shape. For each step they took, the south folded around them like cloth being measured.
That night, the fog rolled back up the valley, thick as breath. It brought silence — the kind made by absence, not mercy. When the first sentries along Zhang's supply line went missing, no one spoke of it. When the second line vanished, the whispers began.
Feiyan struck first — a fire under a wagon, a throat cut clean. Shuye's jars went next, rolling down a slope to break beneath the bridge supports. Wei and Li Qiang moved through the smoke like punctuation in a long, brutal sentence. By dawn, the convoy was ash.
Zhang's lieutenant found what was left:
a dozen wagons overturned, the seals broken, the contents gone. A single banner stood where the grain had burned. It was plain linen, marked only by a brushstroke of blue silk.
When Zhang saw it, he did not speak. He simply burned the messenger's report and ordered the advance to quicken.
But the faster they marched, the slower the road became. Villages emptied before his men arrived. Wells soured overnight. Bridges collapsed under their own weight. Fires flared along the hills each night, too far to chase, too near to ignore.
The south had learned her name again, and it whispered like fever.
On the seventh night, Zhang's army camped near the Broken Willow crossing — an old ford lined with reeds that remembered wars better than any book. He sat in his command tent surrounded by maps and men too tired to believe them.
"Four convoys lost," his quartermaster said. "Two bridges gone. The peasants hide their food. Someone warns them before we move."
"Someone?" Zhang's voice was calm, too calm. "No. She warns them."
The tent went quiet. Even the wind outside hesitated.
Zhang poured himself tea, though the water trembled in the cup. "She hides in Nan Shu. That forest breeds loyalty like rot. Burn it. If they hide in the trees, take the trees from them."
The officer bowed and left. Zhang watched the candle flicker, a small rebellion of its own. "You should have stayed dead," he murmured.
By dawn, his words reached her. A farmer from the northern valley arrived half-frozen, clutching a note written in a soldier's unsteady hand: The Regent burns the forest tonight.
Feiyan cursed. "He means to smoke us out."
Ziyan looked at the trees — ancient things, bent but unbroken. "Then we'll teach him what smoke does when it learns to bite back."
They moved before the fires did. Shuye rigged the old irrigation channels with jars of oil and saltpetre. Wei buried iron stakes along the marsh road. Ren spread false trails marked with banners taken from Zhang's dead.
By the time the torches lit the forest's edge, the south was already waiting.
Flame climbed, proud and foolish. It met the oil too late to retreat. The blast tore through the marsh, a roar that rolled up the hills and made the night bow. Zhang's riders reeled; horses screamed; wagons overturned. Then came the arrows — silent, precise, from nowhere and everywhere.
Feiyan cut through the chaos like a rumor fulfilled. Li Qiang fought beside her, calm amid firelight. Wei's laughter carried over the smoke: fierce, unrepentant, alive.
And at the center of it, Ziyan rode through the burning reeds, her blade red and gold, her hair coming loose in the wind. Soldiers who saw her swore afterward that she was not a woman at all but the spirit of the road itself, risen to collect its debt.
When dawn came, Zhang's army had lost a third of its number and none of its pride. He withdrew north to regroup, his supply lines cut, his patience bleeding.
In the ruins of the marsh, Feiyan found Ziyan standing by the blackened river, watching the smoke rise straight and unafraid. "You could have been killed," she said.
"I was," Ziyan answered. "Once. In the capital. Everything since has been consequence."
Feiyan touched her arm, quiet and firm. "This is only the beginning."
"I know," Ziyan said. "That's why I lit it."
The sun broke through the mist then, pale but real, touching her face with light that had earned its way through smoke.
The south had its war now. But it also had its voice.