The Ash Hall of Qi listened like a man with his hand on a knife.
Lanterns burned low, their light thickened by the grey in the plaster. The floor, pale under its lacquer, held the ash of some other city's ruin. Zhang stood at the head of the room, fingers loose on the rail of the map table, eyes on the man kneeling below.
Ji Lu bowed so deeply his forehead touched the cold.
"You have seen her," Zhang said. His voice was mild. It made the torches stand straighter. "Stand up before your bones freeze, Counsellor. I prefer messengers who can walk back the way they came."
Ji Lu rose to kneel-height, back straight, eyes lowered.
"I have seen Yong'an," he said. "And Li Ziyan."
"Good." Zhang's smile showed nothing of his teeth. "When one is measuring a fire, one does not trust second-hand smoke."
He flicked his fingers. A servant stepped forward, took the sealed report from Ji Lu's hands, and bore it to the table. Zhang weighed the tube in his palm before breaking the red wax.
Silence gathered.
He read quickly. His eyes did not move much; the words had learned better than to waste his time.
"'Unstable but contained,'" he murmured. "'More useful as buffer and grain source than as target.'" He glanced up. "You recommend tolerance, Ji Lu."
"Yes, Excellency," Ji Lu said. "For now."
"Ah," Zhang said. "That small, important phrase."
He read on, lips moving slightly. The hall tasted ink and ash.
"You are honest," he said at last, letting the scroll roll itself shut. "You admit she refused my pardon. You admit she declines 'proper subject status' and continues to carve law as if Qi were a lost story."
"She refuses thrones in general," Ji Lu said. "Not only yours."
Zhang walked around the table, slow.
"And yet," he said, "you still write tolerance."
Ji Lu kept his head lowered. "Yong'an has closed its gates to Xia riders," he said. "Its people remember being Qi. They have not raised other cities' banners. Not yet. If we move too soon, Your Excellency, we prove their stories about us correct. We drive the undecided into her arms. Xia will name her martyr and us butchers. The border will burn for a generation."
Zhang's fingers tapped the map, once.
"'Proto-kingdom,'" he quoted from one of his own earlier letters. "Do you disagree with my word?"
Ji Lu hesitated. "She denies the title," he said. "But she governs. If Your Excellency must have a word… it is not wrong."
"Words are never 'not wrong,'" Zhang said softly. "They are tools. They move men. Or they do nothing and deserve to be thrown away."
He turned toward the inner screen.
"Summon the envoy of Xia," he said.
The order rippled outward like a stone thrown into still water. Behind the curtain, a bell chimed. Footsteps whispered.
Ji Lu's pulse quickened. So that was why he had been called to report in the Ash Hall instead of the quieter Council Chamber. Zhang liked his tableaux.
The envoy of Xia entered with the unhurried stride of a man accustomed to walking on other people's courtyards. His robe was deep blue, his beard neatly combed, his eyes sharp with professionally hidden disdain.
"Regent Zhang," he said, bowing as little as protocol allowed. "Forgive the delay. Your climate disagrees with my joints."
"My climate," Zhang said pleasantly, "disagrees with many things. Some of them learn manners."
He gestured. "Counsellor Ji has just returned from Yong'an," he said. "You will wish to hear his report. Your master has shown… interest."
The envoy's gaze flicked to Ji Lu with the faint curiosity one gives a tool whose edge one has not yet inspected.
"I have a summary from General Ren Kanyu," he said. "Yong'an quiet. Law unusual. Grain moving. No banners but Qi's and their sparrow marking. General Ren recommends patience."
"General Ren," Zhang said, "is fond of his experiments."
"As are you," the envoy answered smoothly. "You breed new words in your halls."
Ji Lu bowed again, buying himself a moment.
"Yong'an refuses both thrones," he said. "Politely. They keep their law. They open a road-house in Haojin, weighing grain and hearing quarrels. They have not raised a crown. But they are… learning how."
The envoy of Xia smiled thinly. "And this troubles you."
"It should trouble you," Zhang said, stepping down from the dais. "You sit in your Pearl of Bai'an, dreaming of neat borders. You rely on Ren Kanyu to keep your eastern maps from fraying. But as long as that woman carves her law on the stones, she teaches your peasants and mine that answers might come from below."
"And?" the envoy asked. "People grumble. They always have. They also starve, and still they plough. The Emperor is not… frightened by one burned girl."
Zhang stopped before him, close enough that ash dust whispered under his heel.
"She is not just a girl," he said. "She is a name. Names are more dangerous than armies, if you let them live long enough."
He let his gaze drift back to the map.
"You offered," he reminded the envoy, "in your Emperor's last letter, to treat her as rebel if we declared her such together. A small, useful war to teach the frontier obedience. I suggested we coordinate. You, very wisely, replied that Xia will not march where it cannot see profit."
"The Emperor," the envoy corrected gently, "observed that Qi's internal disputes are best… resolved by Qi. If we commit troops, it will be for land, not for your convenience."
Ji Lu kept his eyes respectfully down, but his mind ran ahead. There it was: Xia would happily watch Qi and the Road bleed one another white, then gather what remained.
Zhang's smile did not reach his eyes.
"Then perhaps," he said, "we may arrange a profit for you."
The envoy's brows rose, just.