Night in a besieged city had a particular weight.
It was not the soft, busy dark of markets closing or lovers slipping home. It was a held breath. It pressed into shuttered rooms and narrow alleys, into the broken courtyards where snow half-covered yesterday's blood. Even the dogs, exhausted from barking at every clatter for three days, lay with their heads on their paws and watched the gates instead.
Ziyan spread Zhang's letters on the low table and weighted them with a jar lid, a chipped cup, the hilt of her knife. Ink and contempt stared back up at her.
Feiyan lounged against the window frame, one boot braced, the other heel hooked on the ledge. "If you stare at his words any longer," she said, "they'll start believing they still matter."
"They do," Ziyan said.
"As kindling," Feiyan answered. "Not as scripture."
Ziyan traced the line that offered up three counties in exchange for her death. The characters were quick and careless, as if Zhang had been more interested in the bargain than the price. "He thought me small enough to trade," she said. "Ren thought me large enough to bring a letter under truce."
Feiyan's eyes narrowed. "Do you trust him?"
"No," Ziyan said at once. "But he showed his Emperor's teeth to me along with his own. Men who intend only conquest do not bother with that."
"And men who intend cleverer conquests do," Feiyan murmured.
Ziyan's mouth curved. "I didn't say I'd make it easy for him."
A knock came at the door—two quick, one slow. Their signal. Wei pushed in without waiting, followed by Li Qiang, Han, Zhao, and Shuye, who carried a stack of fresh-written bamboo slips hugged to his chest as if afraid they might bolt.
Ren, the scribe, trailed behind, ink on his sleeves and weariness in his shoulders.
Han bowed a fraction, more courtesy than he had offered her in the first days. Zhao bowed deeper—not quite over-earnest, not quite mocking.
"The men think the siege is paused," Han said. "They've eaten double and argue tonight as if there were no morning. Idiots. This is when generals become dangerous."
"To us, or each other?" Wei asked.
"Both," Han replied.
Ziyan gestured to the table. "Good. Sit. You've all earned one night of chairs before the world decides which of us merits a grave."
They settled: Han heavy and solid, Zhao with his habitual slouch that didn't hide how fast his eyes moved, Wei half-perched like a man ready to leap, Li Qiang back straight, hands still. Feiyan stayed at the window. Shuye and Ren knelt near the table's end, laying out slips and sheets with the awkward care of men who knew ink now weighed as much as steel.
"What's this?" Zhao asked, lifting one.
Ren's chin tipped up. "Law," he said. "Our first draft of it."
Ziyan nodded. "You all remember what I said on the gate. That no law would be written for this city that did not bind me first." Her gaze flicked from one to the other. "I meant it. These are the bones of that promise."
Han squinted at the characters. "'No soldier may seize grain from a home without payment in coin or labor'," he read aloud. "'Breaking this will cost him his place in the ranks and his share of rations for a season.' Hm."
Zhao's slip read differently. "'No lord or magistrate may raise tax or levy without open council and written record of cause, witnessed by at least three who are not his kin or creditors.' You mean to put that in writing?"
"Yes," Ziyan said.
"The others?" Li Qiang asked.
Ren shuffled to the top slip. "No punishment without named charge. No charge without witness. No witness unquestioned. No child conscripted without a signed oath from both parents—or guardians, if parents are dead. No oath that cannot be read aloud before the people."
Wei blinked. "You're giving every kitchen girl the right to hear what binds her brother?"
"Yes," Ziyan said again.
Han grunted. "You'll choke us in talk."
"Better that than in silence," she replied.
Zhao tilted his bamboo, reading faster now. "'If broad war comes, all houses—noble and common—will open their granaries to be counted. If there is not enough to feed all, half of what exists will go to those who fight, half to those who cannot. The rulers' stores will be counted first.'"
He looked up. "That includes you."
"Yes," Ziyan said.
Zhao laughed once, almost nervously. "You're building a scaffold and insisting we all stand on it together."
"I'm building a road," she said. "The scaffold has always been there. I'm only insisting we see it."
Silence stretched. Feiyan turned her face slightly, watching their eyes.
Han laid his slip down slowly. "And you want us to sign this."
Ziyan unfolded another sheet. At the top, in Ren's careful hand, were three characters: Oath of the Road.
"Not just sign," she said. "Put seal and thumbprint to it where everyone can see. Lords. Captains. Scribes. Myself first."
"Why now?" Wei asked. "In the middle of a siege?"
"Because war is when law is most likely to be forgotten," Ziyan said. "If we do not put it down while steel is still out, it will never be more than a speech on a staircase."
"You think your people will hold you to it?" Feiyan asked.
"Yes," Ziyan said quietly. "I am counting on it."
Zhao's fingers drummed on the bamboo. "And if we refuse?"
"Then you still fight tomorrow," she said. "Xia will not skip your walls because your thumb is clean. But when this ends—one way or another—the city will remember who bled under law and who under habit."
Han snorted. "You're too young to be this cruel."
"I'm too old not to be," Ziyan said.
Feiyan's mouth curved. That was better.
She picked up a blank slip and Ren's brush, dipped ink without asking. In swift strokes she wrote her name in the corner—not elegant, but unmistakable.
"There," she said, blowing on it lightly. "You have a knife. Now see if any lords are brave enough to step onto its edge."
Wei grinned. "I'll put my mark. I was poor before I was a soldier. Any law that counts my bowl with his—" he nodded at Zhao "—is a law I can live under."
He took the brush. His characters were clumsy; his thumbprint deliberate.
Li Qiang took the brush after him without comment. His hand was very steady. Han followed, grumbling, "You've already tied me to your bridge, girl. Might as well make it official before the river takes us."
Zhao hesitated longest. The brush hovered over the page, ink droplines threatening to fall unsanctioned. He looked up suddenly.
"And when you decide," he said, "ten winters from now, that this law chafes? When you've held power long enough to think you know better than the people you write for?"
"Then I expect you to hold this paper up in my face," Ziyan said. "And remind me which road I swore to walk."
He searched her eyes as if he could find there the inevitable crack every ruler eventually showed.
He didn't.
He signed.