A minister with too much backbone for his own safety lifted his chin. "Highness… this is fear."
"Yes," Li Xuejian said, pleased to find the truth on someone else's tongue for once. "It's the useful kind. It remembers the cost of pride. It buys time."
"Time for what?" another asked before wisdom could throttle him.
"For us to live," Li Xuejian said. "Preferably long enough for you to retire without seeing your grandchildren die on a hill that did not need a dead boy to make it important."
The old general who had taught him to sit a horse when he was five and to take a beating when he was seven coughed into his fist to hide a smile. "Orders taken," he said. "We'll move before dawn."
Li Xuejian nodded. "Good. Take the long road so the spies have time to count. I want the rumor laid before the sun."
The young captain who asked too many questions opened his mouth once more. Li Xuejian stared him into the mercy of silence.
