Liu Changyun stood before the long mirror while Cai Hongwen listened to his account. Light entered through the high windows of the white room. Along the walls, the protective array glimmered faintly, keeping prying eyes out of the white room at Cai's estate in Crimson Bastion.
Cai had not offered him a seat.
"All three grievances have been filed, my lord," Liu said. "Sealed and entered by the proper clerks. The Wang Clan is named in each."
"And the grounds?"
"Their unexplained association with demonic cultivators. The protections that shelter them from honest inquiry." Liu paused. "And the Bastion's men who keep dying in Redstone. Yan Qing, the spear genius, was the latest, lost in the demonic fighting."
"No difficulty with the clerks?"
"None. They accepted your seal."
Cai let him see his approval. Liu was capable enough to carry out an instruction without turning it into an opportunity for himself. He preferred that to the more ambitious sort of servant.
The Wangs could dispute every grievance. He needed them answering questions, with another waiting whenever they satisfied the last. So long as the Bastion continued to accept the reasons he supplied, the clan would have to spend its strength enduring it. Whether any one charge could be proved mattered little to him.
He bore them no hatred. Their claim on Redstone stood between him and the city's accounts. Once those answered to him, the Blackwood Forest would be within reach, and beyond it the domain seat. He had allowed for patience in getting there.
"Where is Tie Yuan?" Cai asked.
Liu raised his eyes. "Still at the Bastion. He keeps to his tower and his records. He has been asking the lower archive for old registers."
Cai turned from the mirror to face him.
"Which registers?"
"I do not yet have the names."
"Find them," Cai said. "Every scroll he has asked for."
"Yes, my lord."
Tie Yuan had been near too many of Cai's failed ventures for him to disregard such a request. His elder brother had the cultivation and a warrior's disposition; Yuan could wait over a record until he found what another man had hoped would go unnoticed. Cai did not expect the names alone to give him much, but he wanted them.
The war occupied Tie Wushan from outside the domain. Pressure from within should eventually prove too much for his clan, if Cai could keep his work undisturbed. Yuan made that difficult.
Neither brother should have held the seat. Cai's father had died for the kingdom, leaving merits that ought to have secured it for his family. The king had looked at the hero's son and seen the schemer beneath. He had doubted whether the Cai Clan still gave the throne its whole loyalty, and put his trust in Tie Wushan instead.
Cai resented the choice. He could not fault the judgment of his loyalty. His father had given his life; Cai had no intention of doing the same. Having the king see that so plainly still displeased him.
Liu waited where Cai had left him standing.
"Who is to lead the inquiry?" Cai asked.
"They seem to have settled on Qin Hualing. The Bastion trusts her. Every account I have gathered calls her honest and incorruptible. The Tie are content to let her conduct the matter as she sees fit."
Cai said nothing. Liu shifted his hands before continuing.
"I am not certain Wei Zhennan can manage her alone. Should we place a second man beside him?"
"One will do."
"If she is as honest as they say, my lord..."
"Then she will want evidence," Cai said. "Wei can help her find it."
Cai moved nearer the mirror, where he could watch Liu's face as well as his reflection.
"The delegation will need a commander who knows the demonic path. Wei has the rank and the experience. He is cold enough for the work, and he looks like a man people can trust. Let him be useful to her."
Liu's hands grew still.
"He is to tell me what happens within the delegation," Cai continued. "What draws her attention, what she means to pursue. Where he can turn her a little toward the questions we want asked, he will. She need never know who benefits."
He expected the rest of Qin's people to accept Wei as readily.
"And if she discovers him?" Liu asked.
Cai met his eyes in the glass.
"Wei Zhennan acted alone. His grief for the Bastion's dead in Redstone overcame his judgment. I will be saddened to learn that one of my retainers has gone so far."
Liu lowered his head.
"Send him his instructions," Cai said. "He travels with the delegation. Not ahead of it. Huang Ying is to stay in Redstone as an ordinary clerk, visible to anyone who cares to look."
"And I, my lord?"
"You will go ahead of the delegation."
Liu bowed, then straightened and waited. Cai let the silence stand before dismissing him.
"That is all."
Only after Liu had left did Cai cross to the desk. The drawer had remained shut throughout the meeting. He opened it and lifted out the deep-blue scroll.
Cold lay against his palm. Beneath it, frost had spread along the grain of the wood.
The guest who had frozen his tea had left the scroll on the night they last spoke. Their agreement bound Cai to a power the kingdom was bleeding men to keep beyond its borders. That power had bound itself to him in return.
He held it a little longer. Failure in Redstone might cost him a season and set his work back. Discovery of this agreement would cost him his life. No one in the kingdom could be allowed to learn what he kept here.
Cai laid the scroll back and closed the drawer.
He had kept his designs small enough, he believed, to escape the notice of those far above Tie Wushan. A frontier city, its dwindling clans, a dispute over a domain seat. The king stood above the Domain Lord, and above the king stood the Blazing Sun throne of Emperor Yan Tianhuo. Cai wanted nothing that required the emperor to look his way.
Prince Huo Zhanlong was the difficulty he had not arranged for. A soldier gathering recruits could turn his attention to much besides the men he came to enlist. Cai had already felt the inconvenience of his presence in Redstone.
There was more than recruitment to consider. The king seemed increasingly restless under the empire, and Cai thought the Huo line was beginning to lean north against a throne it had served for centuries. Cai took the Prince's journey to belong to ambitions larger than a frontier city.
That, too, should take him away from Redstone in time. Cai rested his hand on the closed drawer. He could wait for the Prince to leave.