Snow stayed, then thinned, then stayed again.
It lay in streaks along Yong'an's roofs, in tired drifts against the patched wall, on the shoulders of the law tablets like hair gone prematurely white. Men beat it from the stair treads. Children crushed it under boots, smearing characters into it with sticks until their fingers went numb.
In the council hall, the cold came in under the doors anyway.
Ziyan sat at the low table, cloak hung on a peg, inkstone warming between her palms. Beside her lay three lists: grain, people, disputes.
"Half the south-quarter ovens haven't lit in two days," Shuye said, tapping the first list. "Not because there's no flour. They're waiting to see whose coin we accept."
"Road tax," Ren the scribe murmured. "Everyone pays the same weight at the gate. Inside, let them cheat themselves if they like."
"We carve the weight standard first," Ziyan said. "Then the penalty for shaving it. Steward?"
The man who had once stolen herb stock and now smelled permanently of soap shifted. "If you want it to sting, make it public," he said. "You catch someone stealing by the measure—set them scrubbing steps in the square, clothes inside out, with the words 'I lied to mouths' painted on their back."
Feiyan's lips curved. "Cruel," she said. "I approve."
Ren's brush scratched. "I can't put 'clothes inside out' on a tablet," he muttered. "You'll have grandmothers writing their own commentaries."
"Good," Ziyan said. "Let them. The law should be a quarrel, not a stone that never moves."
She gestured to the second list. "Refugees?"
Chen Rui blew out a breath. "Two hundred and sixty-three by yesterday's count," she said. "General Sun kept bringing more until his men started falling out of their saddles. We crammed them into west-side courtyards and any warehouse with a roof. Some of them think you're a saint. Some think you're the reason their villages burned. It'll take a week before they complain for the ordinary reasons."
"For now," Han grunted, "they complain that we eat while Qi starves, that we trade with wolves, that we carved your name on stone where theirs never got a line."
Zhao flicked imaginary dust from his sleeve. "Jealousy is a very old tax," he said. "We are collecting it in quantity."
Ziyan eyed the third list. At the top, in Ren's neat hand: First case under Road Law.
She slid it closer. "The western altercation?"
Ren's mouth tightened. "An ex-captain from Qi who thinks the tablets don't apply to him," he said. "He took grain meant for the new quarter and claims rank as defense. The quarter claims law. They want to see if your words were for banners or for everyone."
Wei slouched against a pillar. "If you want my opinion—"
"I don't," three voices said at once.
He spread his hands. "I was going to say we make him scrub pots with the weight-shavers. After a short, informative beating."
"We hold court," Ziyan said. "In the square. Under the tablets. We promised that when law breaks, it does so where everyone can see."
Ren nodded. "I'll post the notice."
Feiyan's gaze drifted to the frost-haired windows. "He'll hear," she said. "Your wolf. Our first case. Our first test."
"He's not my wolf," Ziyan said. "But yes. He has eyes here. Let him watch."