Feiyan's gaze slid to her, friction present even in the glance. Remember what you promised, it said without words. Last time.
Ziyan breathed once, twice. The fever-smell from the temple clung to her. The law slips fluttered faintly in the cold draft.
"For stealing medicine during siege," she said, voice clear, carrying, "the old law would have you beaten and branded. Zhang would have had your hands cut, if he were feeling generous. Xia would hang you on the road and call it justice for their wasted charity."
The steward swallowed, face suddenly gray.
"We are not them," Ziyan went on. "We wrote it down. No punishment without named charge. No charge without witness. No witness unquestioned."
She nodded at Feiyan.
"The boy who bought your packet will speak," Feiyan said. "The woman who watched in the alley will speak. The guard you tried to bribe will speak. If any lie, I'll cut their tongues and we can all go back to the old way. But I don't think they're lying."
Silence. Breath steamed.
Ziyan looked at the two men. "You will not be executed," she said.
A ripple went through the watchers—a mixture of relief and disapproval.
"You will not be beaten," she added. "We need your bodies whole. We do not need your old habits."
She stepped closer, so they had to crane their necks to look at her. "From this hour until the siege ends, you will work here." She jerked her chin toward the infirmary. "You will haul water. You will empty night pots. You will scrub floors and wash bandages and hold down men who scream when the healer cuts out dead flesh. You will do it where everyone can see you. Every day. Every night. Until we no longer need this place, or you collapse."
The merchant's eyes widened. "That's—"
"Harder than a beating?" she asked. "Yes."
The steward's throat bobbed. "And if we refuse?"
Feiyan smiled in a way that made even Wei shift. "Then I get to try the old law at least once," she said.
They did not refuse.
Ziyan watched them go, flanked by guards, toward the smell of boiled herbs and sweat and pain. It was not mercy. Not exactly. It was work. For them. For her.
"You keep choosing the exhausting road," Wei said.
"That's the only one that doesn't end exactly where we started," she replied.
He grinned, suddenly bright. "Good. I was getting bored of circles."
By midday, snow thickened again, turning the siege lines beyond the wall into half-seen shapes. Xia did not press an assault. Scouts watched from their knoll. Fires burned low.
"They're resting," Han said. "Or waiting for our fever to eat more of us."
"Or theirs," Ziyan said. "Medicine or no, it's biting both camps."
Zhao joined them, cloak lined with fur he'd finally stopped apologizing for. "The merchants are complaining," he said. "They say the new law makes it impossible to profit from scarcity."
"Good," Ziyan said.
"They say they'll starve."
"Then we'll starve together," she answered. "They signed the oath same as we did."
Zhao studied her. "Do you ever regret it?" he asked. "Not taking Xia's seal when it was offered. Letting them carry the burden of our defense and our hunger."
She thought of Ye Cheng, burned under a foreign banner. Of the Emperor's last moments, palace crumbling. Of the men sealed in the throat of the gate by her order. Of the boy coughing in the temple, chest rising a little easier after Xia herbs slid down his throat.
"No," she said. "I regret not learning earlier how much work it takes to deserve the trust I keep demanding."
Zhao laughed, short and startled. "You're going to make a very annoying neighbor for any empire that survives this."
"I intend to," she said.
A shout from the east tower cut off further conversation.
Riders.
Not from Xia.
They came in twos and threes, slogging through snow, horses rib-showing, banners tattered. Qi colors, but not neat. These were remnants—garrison survivors, caravan escorts, farmers with spears who'd been caught on the wrong side of a skirmish.
At their head rode a woman with a scar across her nose and a battered helmet slung at her saddle. She raised a hand as the wall's archers drew.
"Don't shoot," she called. "Unless you intend to finish what Xia started."
Ziyan leaned out between merlons. "Name."
"Chen Rui," the woman shouted back. "Former captain of the western river guard. Former subject of an emperor who no longer exists. Looking for a city that hasn't given up yet."
Han's eyes narrowed. "How many behind you?"
"Two hundred able to stand," Chen Rui said. "Another fifty who can hold a bow if you let them sit. Twice that who can at least carry water and patch a wall." She spat into the snow. "We've been running in circles between burned villages for three weeks. If you're going to slam the gates, do it. If you're going to let us in, decide fast. Xia's patrols aren't far behind."
Ziyan exchanged a look with Li Qiang. Then she made a decision faster than was comfortable.
"Open the east postern," she called. "Half at a time. Archers on the walls. If any in that crowd carries Xia's wolf under their cloak, I want to know their name before dusk."
Feiyan slid away without a word, knives invisible and very present.