The forest didn't speak.
Smoke still clung to their clothes as Ziyan, Feiyan, and Shuye left the ruined camp behind. The guard who had helped them escape—his arm wounded but his voice steady—walked just ahead, leading them along a narrow path winding through pine and stone.
"You'll be safer in Qinghe," he said quietly. "It's two days' walk if we keep to the hunters' trails. I have a friend at the gates. A city guard. His name is Liang Cheng. Tell him Wei sent you. He'll know what that means."
Ziyan said nothing for a while. Then: "Thank you."
The guard, Wei, only nodded. "I'm sorry I couldn't do more. But… I think there are more people involved in this than anyone knows. Be careful, my lady."
He disappeared into the mist before sunrise.
Qinghe was not what Ziyan expected.
It rose from the cliffs like a painting—whitewashed walls, sloping rooftops, banners swaying gently above archways carved with lotus and dragon motifs. Traders bustled through the southern gate, bartering spices, herbs, silks. But beneath the color and noise, something darker coiled.
Feiyan noticed it too. Her hand never strayed far from her sword.
Ziyan approached the gate and spoke to a bored-looking guard stationed beside a column of waiting carts. "We're looking for Liang Cheng," she said, keeping her voice low. "Wei sent us."
The guard's eyes narrowed.
Then he gave a slow nod and jerked his head toward the inner courtyard. "This way."
Liang Cheng was younger than she expected—sharp-eyed, wiry, with a hawk tattoo hidden beneath his sleeve. He didn't ask questions, just waved them into the shadowed recesses of a side tower, out of earshot.
"So it's true," he said. "Wei found her."
Ziyan stared. "You know who I am?"
"I know what you are to them." He didn't sound pleased. "There's a man who might help. Minister Qiao Jian. Small title, big ears. He's a clerk for the Ministry of Accounts, but he deals in whispers more than numbers."
Shuye clutched her cloak. "Can we trust him?"
Liang gave a tight smile. "That depends. Do you trust people who smile while others burn?"
The minister's office sat nestled behind a tea shop, its door unmarked but guarded by a shrine to Guanyin, her porcelain face cracked with age. Feiyan knocked twice. A soft voice answered.
"Enter—if your feet are clean and your intentions muddled."
The room smelled of incense and ink. Scrolls covered every surface. A man sat behind a lacquered desk, sorting through ledgers with ink-stained fingers. He looked up, eyes gleaming.
"Ah," he said, as if expecting them. "Qiao Jian. Purveyor of curiosities, minor minister, former gambling addict. How may I assist the lost princess and her… traveling companions?"
Ziyan stiffened. "We didn't give you our names."
He smiled. "No. But information is my profession. And your face… is very expensive."
Feiyan stepped forward. "Are you part of this? The camp? The man in grey?"
Qiao Jian blinked slowly. "So many questions. I prefer riddles, myself. But let me say this: whoever wanted you taken… they paid in coin older than this dynasty. And they paid in silence."
He stood, crossed the room, and pulled out a narrow drawer. From it, he withdrew a strip of parchment—singed at the edges, stamped with a faded sigil.
Ziyan leaned closer.
She recognized the emblem.
The Li family seal. An older version. The one her grandfather used.
"What is this?" she whispered.
Qiao Jian tapped the page. "A contract. Simple. It paid for silence. It traveled from the north, passed through the merchant's guild, and ended in a certain trafficker's hands."
Shuye's voice trembled. "So someone in her own family…"
Qiao Jian met Ziyan's gaze. "You were meant to disappear. But not die. Not yet."
Silence fell.
Outside, wind stirred the prayer flags.
Then Qiao Jian added, softer, "You want more? Then follow the trail. The northern archives. The ghost monastery near Mount Yanshui. Someone is waiting for you there."
Ziyan reached for the parchment, but Qiao Jian pulled it back.
"A gift," he said. "But not free. When you return, you owe me a secret."
Ziyan turned away, her hands tight at her sides.
Feiyan was already at the door.
"We leave tonight," she said. "Before this city decides it remembers her."
As they stepped into the twilight streets of Qinghe, lanterns flaring above them like falling stars, Ziyan glanced once more at the shadows behind her.
Who had betrayed her?
And more urgently—why was she still alive?