The first thing the Road City did, when it decided it wanted citizens, was argue about where they should stand.
Ziyan chose the old drill-yard, the one Yong'an's soldiers had once used for marching in circles. The ground remembered boots. It would remember this too.
They cleared snow with brooms and sleeves. Someone dragged out the broken practice dummies and sat them along the wall as if they were bored ancestors. Flags were not allowed—the whole point was that this place did not belong to any one house—but the sparrow had already been carved above the gate; no one thought to cover it.
Delegates came in the same way the first sparrows had: in twos and threes, from different directions, carrying different worries.
From Haojin, Sun Wei with river mud still on his boots and Lin Chang at his shoulder, eyes sharp. From Green Dike, a headman with hands scarred by rope and gratitude he refused to admit to. From Reed Mouth, Aunt Cao's nephew, carrying a bundle of tiles tied with reed twine. From Pomegranate Bend, a woman with a ragged scar on her cheek from the bandit argument Feiyan's story had changed. From three nameless hamlets whose only introduction was "we're downriver of so-and-so" and who had scratched sparrows on their tavern beams out of stubborn curiosity.
Representatives from Qi's lords—Han, Zhao—stood to one side, arms folded, watching the experiment as if it were a new siege engine that might explode. Shuye hovered with a tablet, trying not to look like a clerk and failing. Wei limped slightly from an old bruise and pretended it gave him nothing but charm. Ren the scribe sat cross-legged by a low board, brush ready, his expression the resigned patience of a man about to be given too many words.
They formed a rough circle. Not a ring—the space had too many gaps. But more than the straight line of petitioner and judge.
Ziyan stepped into the middle.
She wore no crown, no crest. Only the blue silk at her wrist, the jade ring, the worn coat of someone who had been both hunted and sheltered in these walls.
"This isn't a council," she said before anyone could make it one. "This is not a court. Not yet. We are not here to play palace with fewer pillars. We are here to decide what it means to hang the sparrow and call ourselves part of the Road City."
Cao Mei shifted the shrine tablet on her back, now with Stone Gate recarved onto fresh wood. "For some of us," she said, "it means we lost our homes before we knew we'd joined anything."
Murmurs. The air tasted of breath and old smoke.
Ziyan inclined her head. "Yes," she said. "For some of you, the name came after the ash. That is one of the things we have to correct."
"Haojin still stands," Lin Chang said. "We hung your board. We would like to know what it costs me to keep it there besides extra ink and the pleasure of shouting at captains."
Sun Wei snorted. "We also want to know what happens when someone cheats under it," he said. "Bandits pretending to be Road. Or our own people using the tablets to pry favors. We've seen both."
Aunt Cao's nephew raised his bundle of tiles. "Reed Mouth has little," he said. "We have the Emperor's paper now and yours and the sparrow. They all weigh differently. The men with whips know that. They look at our beam and see targets, not words. If we're going to be 'city,' we'd like to know when that city rides for us and when it just sends pigeons."
Heads nodded. Even Han looked grimly interested.
"Good," Feiyan murmured near the arch, where she leaned with arms folded. "They know how to ask the right questions. Now you have to answer them without lying."
Ziyan heard her without looking.
She crouched and traced a circle in the dirt with one gloved finger.
"Here," she said. "Is Yong'an. Where the Road's law began."
Another circle: Haojin. A third: Reed Mouth. More: Green Dike. Pomegranate Bend. Unnamed clusters.