Naci stands at the edge of the harbor with Lang at her side and watches her own people pretend they are suddenly experts in administration.

  Banners—men and women who yesterday were riders and raiders—now hold clipboards of split wood, argue over grain ledgers, and point at broken docks like they are debating theology. A pair of Seop recruits, fresh from militia uniforms and still smelling of sweat and fear, are already being taught the Banner way of standing: feet wide, chin up, eyes forward, no apology.

  Lang keeps his posture easy, as if the fort hasn’t been a battlefield and a slaughterhouse in the span of two days. He is Seop; water sits in his bones like instinct. He has the look of a man who knows tides and politics are the same thing: if you do not respect them, they will take your house.

  “The city’s tired,” Lang says quietly, voice pitched low so the nearby dockworkers—forced labor turned suddenly into “citizens”—don’t hear. “Tired enough that they’ll accept almost anything that doesn’t immediately whip them again. But grief is a fire that burns slow.”

  Naci’s gaze sweeps the harbor district. A woman in black kneels by a wall where someone has painted Baek Miju’s name in ash, the letters thick and furious. She touches the soot like a prayer.

  “I didn’t expect them to love their tyrant,” Naci admits.

  Horohan, leaning against a crate a few paces away, snorts without humor. “You didn’t expect Seop to love a Seop woman who stabbed men in the face for them?” she says. “You are sometimes very clever and sometimes remarkably stupid.”

  Naci bares her teeth in something that is not quite a smile. “You should write my biography.”

  “I would,” Horohan says, “but we don’t have paper big enough to fit your ego.”

  Lang turns his head, watching a Banner patrol pass: six riders, two Seop marines in their new Banner sashes, and a messenger boy carrying a bundle of sealed notes. The boy walks with careful determination.

  “We’ve arranged the rotation,” Lang says. “Food first. The fishers will fish if you don’t shoot them and if you stop requisitioning every net like it’s a weapon. The Slump needs water that isn’t ash. The fort walls need repair. The guns need new crews. The city watch—”

  “—needs to stop beating people,” Naci finishes, eyes narrowing at a Banner who is getting too comfortable with authority already.

  The Banner catches her stare and straightens like a dog remembering the hand that feeds it can also cut.

  Naci faces Lang fully then. “You will keep Seop afloat,” she says, voice turning iron beneath the calm. “Not obedient. Not docile. Afloat. There’s a difference.”

  Lang dips his head. “I understand.”

  “And I am sailing back before winter,” Naci adds. She speaks it as if it is a promise to the sea itself. “To check on you. To check on them. To check on what you’ve built.”

  Lang’s mouth twitches. “To check whether I’ve turned it into my own little kingdom,” he says.

  Naci’s eyes flash. “If you do,” she says lightly, “I’ll burn it down. Kindly.”

  Horohan makes a sound like she’s choking on a laugh. “The Khan’s version of kindness is very educational.”

  Lang exhales, then nods again, the set of his shoulders shifting the way a mast settles under wind. “Go,” he says. “Before the city realizes it can hate you and still be alive enough to throw rocks.”

  Naci’s gaze flicks to the remaining ships—Seop junks now wearing Banner colors, patched and repurposed. Some still smell of powder from the harbor battle. Some have boards replaced with whatever wood could be torn from the ruins of the palace. They are not pretty. They are functional.

  That’s enough.

  She turns away. “Keep the coast fed,” she says over her shoulder. “Keep the fort loyal. And if anyone tries to crown themselves while I’m gone—”

  Lang lifts two fingers in salute. “I’ll drown them,” he says, deadpan.

  Naci walks toward the gangplank without looking back.

  ...

  The Seop sea does not care who won.

  The junks rock under the same indifferent swell, their hulls creaking in languages older than empire. Sailcloth snaps. Tar stinks. The wind tastes clean in a way that feels almost insulting after weeks of smoke.

  Naci stands on deck for a long time after they clear the harbor mouth, watching Bo’anem shrink into a bruise on the horizon. When it finally becomes just another dark shape against the sky, she lets herself breathe as if unclenching her ribs.

  Horohan appears beside her with two cups of something that pretends to be tea.

  “You look like you’re waiting for the city to follow us,” Horohan says.

  “It might,” Naci answers. “Grief has long legs.”

  Horohan hands her a cup. “Drink.”

  Naci snorts, takes the cup, and burns her tongue. It is bitter and too hot, which is exactly what she deserves.

  They head below deck later.

  Temej and Borak’s cabin is cramped, smelling of old cloth and oil. One of them has hung a small charm of eagle feathers above the doorframe.

  Temej sits cross-legged on the floor with a board across his knees. Chalk dust coats his fingers. His injured arm rests against his side, stiff and unhappy.

  “Again,” he says, and his tone is exactly the tone of a man who has decided he will not be mocked out of his own project.

  Naci and Horohan crouch across from him like students who both want to pass and also want to bite their teacher.

  On the board are Windmarks: sharp strokes and curves that look like gusts caught mid-swerve. Some marks lean like reeds. Some slash like claws. They are simple enough to carve into wood, quick enough to scratch into leather, and elegant in a way that makes Naci’s chest tighten with something dangerously close to pride.

  “It’s not a picture,” Temej says, tapping a symbol with the chalk. “It’s a sound. Stop trying to make it a horse.”

  Horohan squints at her own attempt—something that, yes, looks vaguely like a horse falling down stairs.

  “It’s not a horse,” she lies.

  “It’s a horse,” Naci says, delighted.

  Horohan’s eyes narrow. “Don’t encourage him.”

  Temej makes a pained noise and pinches the bridge of his nose. “This is why the world stays illiterate,” he mutters.

  Naci leans forward, tongue between her teeth as she tries again. Her chalk scratches. The mark comes out cleaner this time—still crooked, but recognizable.

  Temej nods once, grudging approval. “Better,” he says. “You’re learning. Slowly. Like a wounded ox.”

  Horohan jabs her elbow into Naci’s side. “He called you an ox.”

  Naci bares her teeth. “He called me wounded.”

  Temej watches them both with the faintest, exhausted smile. For a moment, in the cramped cabin with chalk dust drifting like snow, he looks less like an advisor and more like a man who has done something impossible and is quietly daring the world to deny it.

  Horohan taps the board, voice suddenly less sharp. “This,” she says. “This matters.”

  Temej’s gaze flickers, and something like vulnerability flashes under the dry humor. “Yes,” he says simply.

  Naci studies the marks again, then glances at her own hands. These are hands that have held reins, spears, blood. Now they hold a piece of chalk.

  ...

  Dukar, Ta and Puripal’s cabin is slightly larger. Ta sits on the edge of a bunk, one leg stretched out, bandages peeking under his shirt like a secret he’s tired of hiding. Notso is sprawled in the corner, somehow already convinced the sea is simply another kind of carpet. Puripal stands near the porthole, watching waves.

  “You’re doing that thing,” Dukar says, leaning back against the wall.

  Puripal doesn’t look away from the window. “What thing?”

  “The lurking,” Dukar replies. “The looking-like-you’re-about-to-be-assassinated thing.”

  Puripal’s mouth tightens. “Habit,” he says.

  Ta’s voice drifts in, lazy and sharp. “He’s practicing for when the waves attempt a coup.”

  Notso thumps his tail once, as if agreeing that the ocean seems untrustworthy.

  Dukar’s gaze lingers on Puripal. “We’re almost back,” he says.

  Puripal turns at last, expression careful. “You’re going to Tepr,” he says. It isn’t a question.

  Dukar nods. “Before I go back to Qixi-Lo with you,” he says. “If… if they’re dead, I need to know. If they’re alive, I need to—” He stops, jaw working. “I need to see them.”

  Puripal watches him, and something softens around his eyes. “You avoided them a long time,” he says.

  Dukar huffs. “Yes.”

  Ta lifts a finger as if making a scholarly note. “Avoiding family is a respectable hobby,” he says. “I recommend it.”

  Dukar throws a boot at him. Notso’s head snaps up, interested.

  Ta catches the boot one-handed and grins.

  Puripal’s gaze doesn’t leave Dukar. “Are you going alone?” he asks.

  Dukar’s eyes flicker. “Would you come?” he asks instead.

  Puripal goes still. The sea sounds louder for a moment, waves slapping the hull like applause for a scene that finally dares to be tender.

  “After all these years,” Dukar continues, voice quieter, “you’ve never seen my homeland. Tepr. But don’t get me wrong, it’s not really exciting.”

  Puripal’s mouth twists, and a laugh almost escapes him. “I waited for you to invite me,” he admits.

  Dukar stares at him for a heartbeat—then laughs, loud and sudden, like a man discovering a new kind of ridiculous.

  “You waited,” he repeats, incredulous. “Puripal. You, of all people.”

  Ta makes a gagging sound. “Disgusting,” he declares. “Romance.”

  Notso barks once, which in this context sounds suspiciously like agreement.

  Dukar leans forward and bumps his shoulder lightly into Puripal’s. “Then come,” he says. “You’ll hate it.”

  Puripal’s lips curve. “I probably will,” he says.

  They both laugh.

  ...

  In another cabin, Sen sits cross-legged on the floor with a notebook on her lap, pencil poised like a weapon. Lizi sits beside her, leaning against the wall, posture tense even in rest. Across from them, Pragya and Pragati sit close together like two halves trying not to drift apart.

  Sen looks at them with the earnestness of someone who thinks knowledge can glue shattered souls back together. “Tell me about your homeland,” she says. “The place you keep talking about when you sleep.”

  Pragati’s eyes narrow. “We don’t talk in our sleep.”

  “You do,” Lizi says immediately. “You threatened to dissect a donkey last night.”

  Pragya blinks. “That is… normal,” she says, as if explaining a cultural tradition.

  Sen’s pencil scratches furiously. “Donkey dissection: normal,” she murmurs.

  Lizi snorts.

  For a long moment the twins don’t answer. The ship creaks. The lantern sways, painting their faces amber and then dark and then amber again.

  Then Pragya speaks, slow, as if pulling a thread through thick fabric. “It’s… hot,” she says. “Not like Seop’s wet heat. Dry heat. And then the rains come and everything becomes… loud.”

  “Loud,” Pragati echoes. Her voice softens, and something in her gaze looks far away. “The sky is always arguing. Thunder. Monkeys. Bells. People shouting prayers like they’re trying to out-yell the gods.”

  Sen’s eyes widen. “Monkeys,” she repeats, delighted.

  Pragati’s mouth twitches faintly. “Yes. Thieves,” she says. “Worse than pirates. They steal fruit right out of your hands.”

  Lizi, without thinking, says, “Respect.”

  Pragya looks down at her hands. “There are rivers,” she adds. “So wide you can’t see the other side. We used to sit on the steps and watch the water carry offerings. Flowers. Lamps. Sometimes ashes.”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Sen’s pencil pauses. “Ashes,” she repeats, quieter.

  Pragya nods once. “Our mother said the river remembers everything,” she says. “That it carries sins to the sea.”

  Lizi’s jaw tightens, but she doesn’t speak.

  Pragati clears her throat, as if chasing away the softness. “Food is better,” she declares suddenly. “Spices that bite. Bread that’s soft. Sweet things too.”

  Sen lets out a small, startled laugh. “That last part seems important.”

  Pragya’s lips curve for half a second, then fall again.

  Lizi leans forward slightly. “Do you want to go back?” she asks, and her voice is cautious, like she’s afraid of the answer.

  Pragya’s gaze shifts to her sister. Pragati’s fingers twist together.

  “I don’t know,” Pragati admits, and the honesty in it sounds like a wound opening. “I don’t know what home is when everyone you knew there is… gone.”

  Sen’s pencil lowers. She doesn’t write that down. Some things shouldn’t be archived.

  For a moment, the cabin holds a quiet that feels like prayer, even though none of them know the right words.

  Then Sen clears her throat and says brightly, because she cannot help herself, “So. Monkeys. If I built a small trap—”

  Lizi barks a laugh, sudden and sharp. “Sen.”

  “What?” Sen protests. “We’re sharing culture!”

  Pragati’s lips twitch again, and this time the laugh that escapes her is small but real. It surprises her so much she clamps her hand over her mouth immediately.

  ...

  Bimen finally has a cabin to himself, which feels like a luxury and also an indictment.

  He sits at a small table bolted to the floor, inkstone steadying under his palm as the ship sways. His hair is loose, combed neatly, the way a man reasserts civilization after weeks of sharing air with steppe warriors who consider bathing a seasonal activity.

  He writes his report to the Emperor with a careful hand.

  The sentences are elegant. The compliments are measured. The names are placed like chess pieces.

  He does, as tradition demands, embellish his own role.

  He does not, as his younger self would have done, use “barbarian” as punctuation.

  He finds himself describing the Tepr Banners with reluctant precision: their discipline, their ferocity, their leader’s clarity. He writes Naci’s title properly. He even, to his own surprise, credits her decision-making in moments that could easily be framed as his own guidance.

  His brush pauses.

  He considers the other thing he could write.

  Naci intends betrayal, he could say. She spoke it aloud. She plans to turn her spear not merely at pirates and rebels, but at the Empire itself.

  A clean warning. A loyal warning.

  He sets his brush down and stares at the ink as if it might offer wisdom.

  In his mind, the Emperor sits behind layers of lacquer and silk. A man whose hands are soft from being kept safe. A man who once led a battle as a prince and lost it, then spent the rest of his reign letting generals bleed in his stead while he perfected the art of being untouchable.

  Bimen remembers standing in the Imperial City years ago when thunder struck a Moukopl banner clean in half.

  It had been an omen people laughed about afterward, because laughing is safer than believing. A freak storm. A dramatic accident. A story for drunk officers.

  But Bimen remembers the smell of scorched cloth. He remembers the way the air tasted like metal, like prophecy.

  He remembers the year Naci became Khan.

  He connects dots that feel too straight to be coincidence.

  Outside his cabin, the ship groans. The sea slaps the hull with indifferent hands. Somewhere above deck, someone laughs, and the sound travels down the timbers like a ghost of warmth.

  Bimen thinks of the Hluay dynasty pressing at the Empire’s edges like a blade at throat. He thinks of supply lines fraying. Of provinces that whisper. Of the Empire’s confidence growing brittle.

  If Tepr wins this standoff—if Naci truly becomes thunder—Bimen knows the kind of man who ends up remembered kindly in new histories.

  It is rarely the man who warned the old throne in time.

  His brush hovers over the paper.

  He does not write the warning.

  Not yet.

  He tells himself it’s because he needs more certainty. More proof. A better strategy.

  The lie tastes thin.

  Still, he lets it stand.

  ...

  By the time the mainland rises on the horizon, everyone is on deck.

  It appears first as a dark smear, then as a line, then as cliffs and rooftops catching pale light. Zenyu’s shape emerges from morning haze like a carved answer. Harbor masts bristle. Towers watch.

  The sight makes some of the Seop sailors exhale in relief—land is always a kind of mercy, even when it belongs to someone else.

  Naci stands at the bow, cloak snapping, braids whipped by wind. Her eyes are fixed on the city as if measuring it for future use.

  Bimen steps onto the deck and feels the sun on his face, and for a moment he allows himself to imagine the Imperial City of Pezijil again. Order. Marble. Familiar arrogance.

  Naci’s voice cuts through his thoughts.

  “Admiral,” she says.

  He turns. She approaches with the casual confidence of someone who has never had to apologize for taking up space. Salt crusts the edges of her hair. A small cut on her knuckle has healed badly, leaving a red seam.

  “The sea didn’t kill you,” Naci observes.

  Bimen inclines his head. “It tried,” he replies.

  She smiles brightly, as if that amuses her rather than insults her hospitality. “You write well?” she asks suddenly, eyes flicking toward his cabin as if she can see through walls. “Your report.”

  Bimen’s spine stiffens. “I write accurately,” he says.

  “Mm,” Naci says, unconvinced, and then—before he can brace for whatever game this is—she gestures north.

  “Come to Tepr,” she says, voice casual as if inviting him to a drink. “Share a feast with me. As reward for our victory. As a symbol of my respect.”

  The words hang between them, absurd and dangerous.

  Bimen’s first thought is a sharp, instinctive insult. Savage hospitality. Barbarian trap. A wolf inviting a court fish to dinner.

  His second thought is worse: If I refuse, she will remember.

  He feels the old arrogance rise—then stall, caught on the memory of Bo’anem burning, of Banners moving like myth, of Naci standing in smoke and meaning it when she speaks.

  “You are generous,” Bimen says carefully.

  “I am intelligent,” Naci corrects, still smiling. “But yes. Today, perhaps, generous too.”

  Bimen’s mouth tightens. He can feel the deck sway under his feet. He can feel the weight of history shifting, deciding where it wants him to stand.

  He has insults lined up like pearls. He swallows them one by one.

  Finally, he bows—a proper, Imperial bow and says, “Very well, Khan. I accept.”

  ...

  Inside the innermost palace of the Imperial City—where lacquered pillars rise like black tree trunks and painted dragons coil along beams as if listening—the air smells of warm sandalwood. Rain has fallen earlier; the courtyards still shine. The roof tiles drip with a patient rhythm that sounds, if one listens too long, like counting.

  The Yanming Emperor sits behind a screen of embroidered silk, the kind of screen that makes every visitor feel slightly smaller on purpose. Two braziers burn low on either side of the dais.

  Old Ji of the Northern Bureau stands at the foot of the steps, back straight, hands folded within his sleeves. His hair is white in a way that looks like discipline rather than age. His eyes are sharp enough to cut paper.

  Beside him, Sima—Prime Minister—keeps a softer posture and a harder smile.

  A eunuch takes three steps forward, announces nothing, and retreats like a shadow.

  Old Ji bows. “Your Majesty.”

  “Speak,” the Emperor says, and his voice is warm with anticipation.

  Old Ji lifts a lacquered scroll-case with both hands. The seal on it is broken; the wax bears the salt-stain of travel. “A dispatch from Seop,” he says. “From the Southern Bureau.”

  At the word Seop, the Emperor’s gaze brightens a fraction.

  Old Ji continues, measured. “Great Admiral Bimen, Minister of Navies, reports that the archipelago has been reconquered from the revolution. The harbor capital city Bo’anem is taken. The pirate threat is addressed. The Republic’s leadership is dead.”

  Sima’s brow lifts, the expression of a man pleasantly surprised by a bill being paid on time.

  The Emperor leans forward slightly. “Read it.”

  Old Ji breaks the string and unfurls the letter with the care of someone opening a blade. He reads Bimen’s formal phrasing aloud: the restoration of imperial banners in the fort, the reestablishment of convoy routes, the seizure of rebel armories. He does not linger on the most graphic details; palace etiquette prefers its slaughter summarized.

  But he cannot avoid the name.

  “…with the decisive cooperation of the Dragon-Tiger General, Naci, Khan of Tepr,” Old Ji reads.

  The Emperor’s mouth curves. “Ah.”

  That single syllable contains relief, satisfaction, and the faint thrill of owning something dangerous.

  “A loyal vassal does her duty,” the Emperor says.

  Old Ji’s eyes do not soften. “A loyal vassal who enjoys doing it is more dangerous than an enemy,” he replies.

  Silence stretches, thin as silk.

  Sima clears his throat lightly, like a man reminding the room it is still full of air. “Your Majesty,” he says, “Seop returning to obedience is excellent news. Our southern revenue breathes again. Our sea route opens again. That alone is worth an offering at every ancestral shrine.”

  The Emperor nods as if he has already planned the incense. “Rewards, then,” he says, eyes half-lidded in pleasure. “Bimen deserves—”

  “A promotion he does not need,” Old Ji interrupts, and if anyone else had spoken over the Emperor like that, their head would already be decorating a gate. Old Ji’s privilege is built from decades of winning wars. “And the barbarian deserves nothing.”

  The Emperor’s gaze sharpens. “Nothing?”

  “Nothing that makes her stronger,” Old Ji corrects. “She is ambitious. She is intelligent. She has turned Tepr from a scattering of riders into an iron fist. Every honor we place on her is a nail we hammer into our own coffin.”

  Sima’s smile turns sympathetic, the way one comforts a man insisting the storm will stop if everyone agrees hard enough. “Minister Ji,” he says, “the incident with Kuan and Yile still stings. You know this.”

  Old Ji’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly.

  Sima continues, voice mild. “Naci may decide tribute is a rope, not a covenant. If she thinks we punish her for loyalty, she may stop being loyal. That is not ideal timing.”

  “Timing,” Old Ji echoes, with the contempt of a man who has watched bureaucrats lose wars by insisting on the calendar.

  The Emperor raises his hand. The gesture is small. It silences the room like a sword being unsheathed in the dark.

  “The Hluay dynasty is closer to Pezijil with every minute,” the Emperor says. “Our Empire is a house on fire. And when a house is on fire, one does not argue about whether the bucket smells of horse.”

  Sima inclines his head. “Your Majesty speaks plainly.”

  The Emperor’s lips twitch. “I speak urgently.” He looks to Old Ji. “You distrust Naci. Fine. Distrust is healthy. I distrust my own reflection some mornings.” His eyes flick to the polished floor, where his sleeves ripple like water. “But we need her pointed outward a little longer. Reward her properly. Keep her hungry, but not furious. A tether, not a leash.”

  Old Ji’s voice is cold. “A tether still snaps.”

  “It snaps faster when you yank it,” the Emperor replies, and the softness in his tone is what makes it dangerous.

  Sima steps in, choosing his words with the precision of a man counting arrows. “Your Majesty, the situation is dire. The Hluay have done what every competent enemy dreams of. They have drawn a clean line of occupation—west to east—splitting the Empire in two.”

  He gestures, and an attendant rolls out a painted map on a low table. The inked line across the empire looks like a wound.

  “Our southern commanderies can only be reached reliably by sea,” Sima continues. “Overland couriers vanish into Hluay checkpoints. Grain caravans are confiscated or burned. What remains of our inland roads is a rumor carried by starving refugees.”

  Old Ji’s eyes narrow. “And with Bimen overseas, coordinating sea logistics becomes… complicated.”

  “Complicated,” Sima agrees. “And expensive. The kind of expensive that breeds corruption like flies.”

  The Emperor’s fingers drum once on the arm of his seat. “Then we stop bleeding,” he says. He looks at Old Ji. “Minister of Armies. Grand Commander. What is your plan to crush them?”

  Old Ji’s expression does not shift, but something in the air changes; the room feels suddenly more like a war tent and less like a palace.

  “My plan,” Old Ji says, “requires a man who has fought Li Song and lived.”

  At that name—Li Song—Sima’s smile fades.

  Old Ji turns his head slightly. “Bring him.”

  A side door slides open.

  Jin Na enters.

  He walks with the steady pace of a man who has learned not to waste movement. He is broad-shouldered, weathered, dressed in plain commander’s robes rather than court finery. One eye is covered by a dark patch; the skin around it is scarred, the texture of a wound that never stops speaking.

  He bows—deep, respectful, but without fawning. He is not here to charm; he is here to win.

  “Your Majesty,” Jin Na says.

  The Emperor studies him, and in that gaze is the calculating hunger of a man who loves tools. “Jin Na,” the Emperor says, almost fond. “They tell me you lost your eye to Li Song.”

  Jin Na’s mouth tilts, faintly amused. “I lent it to him,” he says. “He kept it. Rude man.”

  Sima coughs once, a laugh disguised as etiquette. Even Old Ji’s lips threaten to move.

  The Emperor’s smile widens. “Good. You still have teeth.”

  Jin Na steps to the map table. He does not touch it yet, as if the painted empire might bite. “Li Song fights like hellfire,” he says. “Because he is patient, and he goes around what is hard. He does not meet your strength head-on unless he has already poisoned it.”

  Old Ji nods once. “Continue.”

  “The Hluay line is strong because it is fed,” Jin Na says. “Not heroic fed. Not ‘we will eat grass and sing.’ Fed fed. They hold a corridor that cuts us in two, and they keep it alive with depots, river crossings, and local levies coerced into service.”

  He finally taps the map—three points along the occupation line. “Here. Here. And here.”

  Sima leans closer. “Supply nodes.”

  “Yes,” Jin Na says. “A line is not a wall. It is a throat. You squeeze the throat, the wall falls over.”

  The Emperor’s eyes sharpen. “How do we squeeze it?”

  Jin Na’s gaze slides away from the map, toward Old Ji, then toward the Emperor, and finally settles with deliberate weight on the name neither courtier wants spoken too loudly.

  “Tepr,” Jin Na says.

  Old Ji’s jaw tightens. “You intend to rely on her again?”

  “I intend to use her,” Jin Na corrects. “There is a difference. The supreme art is to subdue the enemy without fighting. Li Song believes that too. So he makes us fight ourselves—by turning our fronts into separate wars and forcing us to choose which child to save when both houses burn.”

  Sima’s eyes flick toward the north of the map. “The Yohazatz.”

  Jin Na nods. “The triangle,” he says. “Moukopl against Yohazatz. Hluay against Moukopl. Hluay against Yohazatz when convenient. Everyone hates everyone. Everyone claims virtue. It’s an excellent mess for a strategist and a terrible one for a farmer.”

  Old Ji snorts. “Farmers are already dead.”

  Jin Na’s smile is thin. “Then let us make their deaths purchase something.”

  He points along the Hluay line again. “The Hluay have a particular hatred for the Yohazatz,” he says. “They have been humiliated by raids. We targeted them with assassins disguised as steppe riders—men with felt and wind-scarves who slipped through camps and tried to cut out Hluay Linh’s heart.”

  Sima’s eyes narrow. “He survived.”

  “He survived,” Jin Na agrees. “Which means he learns. The next attempt will fail if it looks like the last.”

  The Emperor leans forward. “So we don’t repeat it.”

  Jin Na spreads his hands over the map, palms hovering like hawks. “We let the Yohazatz be Yohazatz—raids, feints, burned wagons—loud enough that the Hluay cannot ignore them. Naci can provide that pressure from the east, and she will do it gladly because it feeds her legend and keeps her riders moving.”

  Old Ji’s voice is sharp. “And it bleeds her.”

  Jin Na meets his gaze without flinching. “And it bleeds her,” he agrees. “A disloyal vassal is less dangerous when she has fewer soldiers. That is a truth even poets understand.”

  Old Ji’s expression eases a fraction—not approval, but recognition. He likes plans that hurt two enemies at once.

  Sima interlaces his fingers. “How does that help us cut the line?”

  Jin Na taps the three points again. “When the Hluay shift troops north and east to answer the steppe pressure,” he says, “their corridor thins. They become dependent on fewer roads and fewer river crossings. They have to move grain faster, farther, with less escort.” He looks up. “That is when we burn the throat.”

  The Emperor’s eyes gleam. “You propose arson.”

  “Fire is merely one of logistics’ more persuasive arguments,” Jin Na says smoothly.

  Sima exhales, half amused, half horrified. “And who burns it?”

  Jin Na’s smile widens, and for a moment the man looks almost proud in a way that doesn’t belong in a palace. He reaches into his sleeve and produces a second sealed packet—not a dispatch, but a roster. The seal is not imperial. It is a simple stamp of a flame.

  Old Ji’s eye twitches. “What is that?”

  “My answer to Li Song,” Jin Na says. “He has specialists. Saboteurs. Men who vanish into reeds and return as smoke. He thinks he invented terror with discipline.”

  Jin Na turns slightly toward the side door, the way a stage performer invites attention without begging for it.

  “I trained my own,” he says. “Not drunk torch-boys. Not peasants with grudges. Professionals. A team that understands timing, wind, distance, fear, and the simple truth that an army can starve as easily as it can be stabbed.”

  The Emperor’s voice drops, hungry. “Bring them.”

  The side door opens again.

  They enter in a line of six—boots quiet on lacquer, posture disciplined but not rigid, eyes sharp and unafraid. They look nothing like court assassins in silk. They look like people who have crawled through mud and survived the privilege of seeing what war really is.

  The first is a woman with ash-gray hair braided tight, her face calm in the way of a person who has watched buildings fall and not screamed. She bows with perfect precision, then lifts her head with a faint, confident smile that suggests she knows exactly how flammable this palace is.

  Beside her, a lean man with burn-scarred hands rolls his shoulders like he’s loosening for a dance. He grins at the Emperor as if they’ve met at a tavern rather than a throne.

  Two younger figures stand behind them—twins, maybe, or simply equally composed—each carrying a small satchel that clinks softly when they move, as if filled with secrets.

  Another is older, bald, with prayer beads wrapped around one wrist and a look of serene menace that makes Sima instinctively sit straighter. The kind of man who could recite a sutra while ending a village.

  Last comes a broad-shouldered youth with soot permanently embedded under his nails. He looks almost cheerful, like a boy invited to a festival instead of a war council.

  The six bow again, in unison, and the bow is not humble. It is competent. It is the sort of bow that says: Yes, we understand what you want. Yes, we can do it. Yes, we will come back alive to collect our pay.

  The Emperor’s gaze moves over them like a hand weighing knives.

  “What are their names?” he asks, mild as if requesting musicians for a banquet. “If I am to spend them, I prefer to know what I am throwing into the fire.”

  Jin Na inclines his head. “As Your Majesty commands.”

  He gestures, one by one, as if placing pieces on a board.

  “Lady Ash-Thread, called Hui by the few who survive her work. Qin ‘Laughing Coal’, who smiles when he smells lamp oil. The Reed-Twins, Ruo and Ran—quiet hands, quick mind. Monk Black-Salt, who prays for the dead while arranging more of them. And Gao Fire-Spark—young, eager, and stupid enough to be brave.”

  Jin Na’s mouth twitches, almost fond. “Together, they are my Cinder Court. If Li Song has shadows, then Your Majesty now has a sunrise that burns.” Jin Na’s one good eye gleams, “they have been waiting for a worthy line to burn.”