The kiln wall still held the ghost of day's fire.
I leaned my shoulder into the stone wall, listening to the river whisper against stone, and let the dark decide what it wanted to give me. If Sun Longzi meant to come, he would come. If he meant to posture, he would already be late.
He wasn't late.
Bootsteps angled down the alley, heavy enough to be a soldier's but not careless enough to be an amateur.
Longzi knew how to walk where men might be listening. He stepped into the faint spill of torchlight from the gate, scarf low, hair tied plain, traveling cloth still creased from folding. Not the dressed general, not the commander's son—just a man who wanted to be taken seriously.
Another shadow followed him.
I let my brows climb. "You brought someone."
"A veteran," Longzi replied evenly. His hand flicked once and the shape detached from him, broad-shouldered, scarred under one eye, the kind of man who had learned more from winter than from teachers.
