When the second dawn rose, it was red for reasons no priest could explain. The air had that strange, trembling clarity that comes before thunder or confession. On the eastern fields, Xia's banners shifted like a forest learning to walk. From the west, Zhang's ranks glittered in cruel alignment, sunlight glancing off their helms as if the heavens had decided to side with precision.
Ye Cheng stood between them, a city rebuilt on bones that had refused to rot. From its walls hung torn blue silk and smoke, the only colors left that told truth.
Ziyan watched from the northern tower, her hair pinned with a splinter of cedar, her gaze steady enough to make the wind hesitate. "Two emperors," she said quietly, "and one river to decide which story survives."
Feiyan beside her tightened the straps of her armor. "The river likes neither," she said. "It will take whoever steps first."
Wei leaned against the parapet, spearhead catching firelight. "Then let's make them polite. We'll let Xia go first."
Below, Ren and Han arranged the civilians, turning chaos into motion: bucket lines for fire, runners for messages, children sent to basements with orders not to be brave. Shuye knelt beside the last of his jars, tracing a sigil on the clay with a carpenter's care. "This one," he murmured to it, "is for when we run out of cleverness."
The horns began — first Xia's, low and relentless, then Zhang's, sharp and proud. The sound met above the river and argued without words. Then came the arrows, an iron rain that rattled the rooftops and found every surface that believed itself safe. The sky darkened not from clouds but from ambition.
Li Qiang moved along the wall with the rhythm of an old prayer. "Hold until they tire," he told his men. "Then remind them why walls were invented."
Feiyan disappeared before Ziyan could reply. That was her habit — to vanish at the moment between command and need. She slipped into the smoke and down the riverbank where Xia's siege engineers worked among ropes and pulleys, unbothered by the dead. The first man never saw her. The second thought he did, but by then the knife had taken his breath for a keepsake. She set Shuye's smallest jar beneath their bridge frame, lit the wick with a soldier's prayer, and walked away without watching the fire bloom. Behind her, the river rose and remembered how to roar.
On the western plain, Zhang's cavalry charged, hooves striking rhythm as disciplined as heartbeat. Wei's riders met them at the half-frozen ditch, mud exploding like punctuation. When Wei's spear shattered, he used the haft and a curse, laughing with blood in his mouth because laughter still counted as defiance.
From the tower, Ziyan could see both fronts at once — Xia's banners folding, Zhang's standards advancing. "They will crush each other on our walls," Ren warned.
"Good," Ziyan said. "Then we'll be the silence that survives their noise."
She signaled to Han. The western gates opened just enough to mock the word surrender. Shuye's great jar rolled out, wrapped in burlap and faith, and when it met the ground, the world buckled. The explosion tore the charge from both armies, flinging horses sideways and men into the kind of stillness that no prayer interrupts.
The dust cleared in slow disbelief. Xia's forward ranks, blind from the blast, stumbled into Zhang's. Someone shouted treachery, and someone else believed it. In an instant, two invading forces turned their fury inward.
Ziyan watched through smoke as empires ate each other by mistake. "The river judges," she said softly. "And we hold the scales."
Feiyan returned through the chaos, limping, a line of red down her thigh. "The bridge is gone," she reported, breathing hard. "So are the engineers. The river's angry again."
Ziyan reached to steady her, thumb brushing the edge of Feiyan's hand. "Stay angry with it," she said. "It listens better that way."
The battle raged without plan or poetry. Xia's drummers were the first to fall silent; Zhang's horn men followed. By midday, the field was a single color — the gray of things that can no longer choose sides. Only the river kept its voice.
When the wind changed, smoke drifted north, carrying with it the scent of cedar and iron, of cities trying to remember who built them. Ren climbed the steps, hair streaked with soot. "They're retreating," he said. "Both. What's left of them."
"No," Ziyan said. "They're being reminded."
Feiyan leaned against the wall, blood soaking through her bandages. "Reminded of what?"
"That a kingdom is not what men build," Ziyan said. "It's what refuses to die when they're done."
They stood together as the sun began to fall, red again, though this time the reason was clear. The river below them glowed with firelight, carrying the ashes of armies toward seas that would not care.
Wei limped up last, armor dented, face streaked with victory and exhaustion. "The road's full of bodies," he said. "Do we chase?"
Ziyan shook her head. "No. Let them carry the story for us."
Ren looked south, to the horizon where new smoke already rose. "Zhang will rebuild. Xia will regroup."
"Then we rebuild faster," Ziyan said. "And we teach the next city how to listen."
Feiyan smiled faintly, eyes half-closed. "You sound like an emperor."
Ziyan turned toward the ruined city, its roofs steaming, its people crawling from cellars to taste the air again. "No," she said. "I sound like the road."
The river rolled on, indifferent, immense, its surface dark but clean. It did not bless them, and it did not curse them. It simply flowed past Ye Cheng and carried away everything that had not learned to stand.