The first sign was not a banner but a bell.
One, two, three strokes from the south tower: rider spotted. No alarm. No wolves.
Ziyan set down the ledger she'd been notating with Ren and Li Qiang and went up to the parapet, cloak already on her shoulders. The air had shed its sleet; it hung grey and thin, tasting of wet stone and smoke.
A single rider waited beyond the gate, cloaked, flanked by four others who wore Qi's dragon in threadbare embroidery. No baggage train. No siege. A polite threat.
Han made a low sound beside her. "Zhang sends paper before he sends steel," he said. "He always did like starting in the archives."
Ren shaded his eyes. "The main rider carries a proclamation tube," he said. "Two, actually. One Qi red, one… Xia blue."
Ziyan's stomach tightened. "Both thrones at once," she murmured. "Or what's left of them."
Wei leaned between the crenels, squinting. "He sits a horse too straight for a clerk," he said. "Too neat for a real fighter. One of those men whose weapons are other people's armies."
Feiyan would have called him "a man who wipes his hands before he lies." Ziyan folded that thought away. Feiyan was walking in other courts now.
"We receive him," she said. "In the square, under the tablets."
Han shot her a sideways look. "You like making enemies give speeches where everyone can hear," he said.
"I like making sure everyone hears the same lie at once," she answered. "It saves time."
They opened the gate.
The rider entered at a walk, his horse's hooves clicking on Yong'an's patched stone. He wore plain but well-cut robes under his cloak; his hair was tied in a gentleman's knot; his face held the faintly pained expression of someone used to better scenery than mud and law tablets.
He dismounted with easy grace and bowed—just enough—to the group waiting inside the gate: Ziyan, Li Qiang, Han, Wei, Zhao, Chen Rui, Ren, the midwife, half the council, and a scattering of curious citizens who had not bothered to pretend to be anywhere else.
"Counsellor Ji Lu," he said. "Envoy of Qi."
Ziyan bowed in return, less deeply. "Li Ziyan," she said. "Road Speaker of Yong'an."
His gaze flickered over the carved tablets, the sparrow marks, the mismatched bands on the watching arms. "We have heard that name," he said. "Many ways."
"I imagine you have," she replied. "Let us add another."
They walked together to the granary square, the envoy's four escorts trailing and trying not to gawk. By the time they arrived, word had spread: faces peered from windows, children were shooed to the back of the crowd and wriggled forward again, traders leaned on their shutters, their eyes sharp.
Ren had cleared a space in front of the tablets and set a low table there. Ji Lu took in the arrangement, the publicness of it, and smiled faintly.
"You prefer open air to council chambers," he observed.
"We have no sealed rooms," Ziyan said. "When law changes here, everyone hears it."
He unfastened the red tube from his belt and laid it on the table. The Qi dragon glared from its lacquer, rubbed almost smooth with handling.
"By command of the Regent of Qi," Ji Lu said, voice pitched to carry. "I bear words for Yong'an, and for Li Ziyan in particular."
Murmurs. The midwife snorted. "That boy still calling himself Regent?" she asked no one.
Ji Lu's mouth twitched. He broke the seal, unrolled the scroll, and read in the sonorous cadence of men trained to make even insults sound ceremonial.
"'To the people of Yong'an, and to the subject Li Ziyan who once knelt in Ye Cheng's court under my father's gaze:
You have heard many tales. I write the truth.
Qi bleeds on all borders. Xia's wolves press from the east; petty lords gnaw in the north; bandits roam as if the dragon were asleep. In such times, the empire must be one body, not pieces.
I am told you have carved your own law, raised your own council, given yourself a title under the presumption of Heaven. I am told you write 'Road Under Heaven' where once you wrote 'Qi'. This is rebellion by any name.
Yet: you are of my blood's kingdom. I am not willing to see the flame of your talents wasted in the gutter.
Thus: if Yong'an lays down its self-made tablets and receives again the law of Qi; if Li Ziyan returns to her proper station as subject and minister under my seal; if the so-called Road dismantles its pretence of sovereignty, then all past crimes shall be forgiven. Ye Cheng's loss will not be laid upon your neck; your followers will be restored to the registers; your city will enjoy the protection of Qi's armies and the grace of its court.
But if you persist in this delusion of a kingdom without a king, if you shelter under foreign wolves and spread your infection to other towns, then know this: you will be named traitor not only in Qi but in Xia. Your Road will be broken. Your name will be burned. Your followers will be scattered like ash.'"
The last word hung in the air, sour.
Ji Lu lowered the scroll. "There is more," he said. "Praise. Regret. Lawyers' flourishes. I spare you."
A ripple of laughter, sharp-edged.
"And the blue tube?" Ziyan asked.
He held it up. It was narrower, heavier. "This," he said, "is from Xia's Emperor. It does not name you. It names Yong'an as 'border protectorate within Xia's gaze'. It says simply: any city that harbors 'rebels against proper order' will be treated as enemy to both thrones."
Ren scribbled the phrasing on a slate, jaw tight.
"So," Ji Lu said, looking around at the faces, at the chipped tiles, at the sparrow carved over the nearest tablet. "Qi says: return, and be forgiven. Xia says: do not shelter those we name rebels. Both advise you, in their own ways, to reconsider… this."
He nodded toward the law tablets, toward Ren's slate, toward the odd assembly.
"You are the first envoy to answer our tablets since we carved them," Ziyan said. Her voice was calm. "You bring words from two thrones. Thank you."
He blinked once, slowly. "You take grave threats with unusual courtesy," he said.
"Courtesy is free," she replied. "Fear is expensive. We save it for when it's useful."
A low, appreciative murmur came from the crowd.
She turned her back on Ji Lu to face the watching ring. "You've heard," she said. "Qi offers to forgive me if we unmake what we've made. Xia promises to punish us if we harbor anyone they call rebel."
Someone spat. Someone else crossed themselves toward the temple.