Feiyan made a face. "He'll flatter you to death, if the stones don't manage it first."
Ziyan read on.
We have traded days enough to know that neither of us is clumsy, Ren Kanyu had written. You burned my wagons. I shook your square. You kept your herbs. I keep my ladders. We both bury men.
My Emperor demands I break you quickly and be seen to do it. I find myself less enthusiastic about making you into the sort of lesson he prefers.
Therefore: I ask parley.
At dusk, where the river bends south of your western ditch, out of range of ordinary malice. You, with two beside you. Myself, with two. No archers in the reeds, no knives in the water. We will both know that is a lie. Come anyway, or don't. If you do not, tomorrow I will press the walls with troops who will not care that I preferred a different ending. If you do, we may yet find one that leaves more of our people alive than dead.
I will wear no armor. I suggest you don't, or this becomes a farce.
Ren Kanyu.
Wei whistled softly. "He's very… reasonable for a man trying to kill us."
Han scowled. "You cannot go. It's bait. Either he lies and you die on a riverbank, or he tells the truth and brings word back to his Emperor that you hesitated, that you begged, that—"
"—or," Zhao interjected, "they talk, hate each other politely, and go back to killing more cleverly."
Li Qiang said nothing. His silence was pressure.
Feiyan plucked the letter from Ziyan's hand and skimmed it, lips twisting. "He's right about one thing," she said. "Tomorrow he'll have to throw men at the walls who haven't watched you speak, who don't care about your tablets. They won't hesitate. Neither should you. One way or another."
Ziyan took the letter back, eyes on the neat strokes.
"He wants something he can bring home," she said. "A story to tell his Emperor. A city broken. Or a bargain struck."
"No bargains," Wei said immediately.
"Only the ones we write down ourselves," Ren the scribe corrected, having climbed the tower steps in time to hear the last part. He wiped his palms on his robe, nervous. "If you go and say anything to him, it must be written here first."
He tapped his satchel, where spare tablets thunked.
Ziyan looked out at the bend of the river mentioned in the letter. She could see it from here, a slight softening of the bank where reeds clung and frost sulked.
"I will go," she said.
Han swore. Zhao clapped once, in reluctant admiration. Wei started three different objections and abandoned all of them halfway through.
Li Qiang nodded, slow, inevitability made flesh. "Then I go with you," he said.
Feiyan's eyes were already narrowed. "And I," she said. "If one of us is to die of someone else's cleverness today, I have… preferences."
Ren tensed. "At least wait until I have the terms carved," he said. "What you will not yield. What you may."
"We have a few hours of daylight," Ziyan said. "Carve fast."
—
Word spread before they could decide whether to tell it.
"Parley," the city breathed, like a draft through a cracked door. "She's going out." "To talk to wolves?" "To end it?" "To surrender?" "To spit in his face?" "To sell us off?" "To buy us time?"
Ren the scribe set up in the granary square again. This time he wrote slower, careful to make each stroke undeniable.
"This is what will be said on the riverbank," he announced, voice hoarse but carrying. "It will not be whispered later. You may hear it now."
People gathered, drawn like filings to a magnet.
He read, brush ticking each line as if counting off beads:
"That Yong'an will not open its gates to Xia."
"That Yong'an will not give grain to feed the army besieging it."
"That Yong'an will recognize no lord who hides law or food from those he rules."
"That if any treaty is made, it will be read here, in this square, in full, before it is sealed."
"That any word spoken on behalf of Yong'an without being carved here is not binding."
"And that if Li Ziyan does not return," he added, throat tight, "this square will not be left empty. Whoever stands here next will hold to the same law, or their name will not be carved with hers."
When he was done, the silence had texture.
Ziyan listened, cloak hood shadowing her face. Feiyan watched the crowd, seeing who nodded, who frowned, who looked toward the walls instead.
The steward from the temple spoke up, surprising himself as much as anyone. "If she doesn't come back," he rasped, "I'll make sure the pots are scrubbed anyway. Sick don't stop dying because the one who wrote their rules does."
Someone laughed. It sounded like crying's older cousin.
Ziyan stepped forward just enough that more could see her. "If I don't come back," she said, "don't turn this into a shrine. Turn it into a bad example. Carve on the next tablet: 'Do not send one person to do the work of many, no matter how fine her speeches.'"
A few tentative smiles. Even Han's mouth twitched.
She turned away before anyone could bow.