The salt-laced wind of Bo'anen's harbor claws at Goeghon's robes as he disembarks, his boots sinking into the damp planks of the dock. Above him, the alabaster spires of Seop's capital glint like fangs, their bases swaddled in a fog thick with fish guts and decay. The port teems with chaos: merchants hawking glazed eels, sailors brawling over dice, and imperial taxmen prowling like vultures in silk tunics. Goeghon adjusts the straps of his bulging satchels—saltpeter hidden beneath bolts of northern fox fur—and steps into the maelstrom.

"Outlander filth!" A fishwife hurls a rotten mackerel at a cowering dockworker. Goeghon sidesteps the mess, his nose wrinkling. Home sweet home.

The plaza beyond the docks is a churning beast. Nobles glide through on palanquins, their faces, fingers adorned with jade rings that could feed a slum for a year. To the east, the marble colonnades of the Moon District rise, their gardens heavy with peonies. To the west, a tangle of huts lashed together with seaweed ropes. A poet stands on a barrel, his voice slicing through the din:

"The crane preens on a mountain of gold, while the sparrow starves in its shadow!"

A gang of silk-robed youths toss coins at his feet—mockery, not mercy. One coin strikes the poet's cheek. He catches it, bites it, and spits out a shard of copper. "False charity from false emperors!" The crowd roars.

Goeghon's palms sweat. He thinks of Naci's offer—riches beyond mortal comprehension—and the satchel's straps dig deeper into his shoulders. A child tugs at his sleeve, her eyes hollow as a beggar's bowl. "Alms, uncle? My brother coughs blood…" He drops a dried apricot into her hand.

"Make way!"

A noble's carriage thunders past, its wheels spraying mud across a cluster of straw-hatted laborers. One man, too slow, is caught in the deluge. He wipes the filth from his face, his fists trembling. The crowd stills. For a heartbeat, the air is a drawn bowstring—then a laugh cracks the tension. The mud-smeared man bows theatrically to the retreating carriage. "A gift from your generosity, lord! May your ancestors savor its flavor!" The plaza erupts in uneasy laughter. Goeghon exhales. Not today. But soon.

He slips into the slump, where the stench of seaweed fires and desperation clings like a second skin. Sen's hut leans precariously, its walls a patchwork of driftwood and rusted nails. Inside, chaos reigns.

"Aaah!" Sen's shriek pierces the air as Goeghon pushes open the door. She's suspended upside-down from the rafters, her hair a nest of smoking wires, goggles askew. A contraption of pulleys and cracked mirrors dangles beside her, its purpose inscrutable. "Brother!" she crows, swinging like a deranged pendulum. "You've arrived just in time! I've discovered the secret to… uh… vertical flight?"

Saya emerges from the shadows, a squirming octopus in one hand and a gutting knife in the other. Her glare could freeze magma. "You're late."

"The Moukopl customs officers insisted on inspecting my socks," Goeghon deadpans, dropping his satchels. The saltpeter settles with a whisper.

Sen somersaults free, landing in a heap. "Oof. Did you bring the sulfur? The antimony? The—"

"Toys later," Saya snaps. She tosses the octopus into a boiling pot, where it curls into a grotesque flower. "The magistrate's men came yesterday. Asked about your 'fireworks.'"

Sen pales, then grins. "Innovation is never appreciated in its time!"

Goeghon sinks onto a stool, his mind fraying. Through the hut's lone window, he watches the slums simmer. In the distance, the Moon District's lanterns twinkle, oblivious.

"You're brooding," Saya observes, thrusting a chipped bowl of seaweed soup into his hands. "Was the north so grim?"

He hesitates. Naci's fierce eyes, the Tepr steppes alive with rebellion. "They have… ambition there."

Sen snorts. "I have a lot of ambition too."

Saya slams her knife into the table. The octopus tentacle twitches. "We're one missed tax payment from the magistrate selling Sen to the mines. Again."

A silence falls, thick as the soup's sludge. Goeghon's fingers brush the saltpeter satchel. Explosive fire. Flame-defying walls. Naci's words coil in his mind, serpentine. He murmurs, suddenly solemn. "The air here… it's curdled. The slums whisper of burning the Moon District's gates."

Saya freezes. "Fool's talk."

"Is it?" Goeghon meets her gaze. "I saw a man today, ready to strangle a noble for a splash of mud."

Outside, the poet's voice floats through the cracks: "The wind carries ash from the west…"

Goeghon unknots the satchel. White powder spills onto the table, ghostly in the dim light. Saya recoils. "What madness is this?"

"Saltpeter," Sen breathes, dipping her finger into it. "The bones of fire…"

Goeghon's voice is taut. "A Khan wants to forge a new world. She needs this and offered me great riches if I bring it to her."

Saya's knife twitches in her grip, the blade glinting like a serpent's fang. "So you lugged this smelly sand across half the world," she snarls, "but didn't sell it to this northern lunatic for a mountain of gold? Have you finally caught Sen's madness?"

Goeghon traces a finger through the saltpeter, the powder clinging to his skin like spectral ash. "The Khan doesn't want the sand. She wants firestorms. The Crouching Tigers. And the Moukopl and Seop fortress engineering." His gaze flicks to Sen, who is now balancing a chopstick on her nose. "We don't have that knowledge. But she does."

Sen lets the screwdriver clatter to the floor. "I do? Oh! Ohhhh." Her eyes widen, the gears of her mind audibly whirring. "You mean the Treatise on Combustible Particulates! The Ratios of Deflagration scrolls! The—"

"—the scribbles in your mess right there, yes," Goeghon interjects dryly.

Saya slams her palm on the table, rattling the bowl of congealed soup. "And you trust this barbarian? She'll slit our throats and feed our guts to her horses!"

"Her horses probably prefer melon, actually," Goeghon mutters. "And she's not… what you'd expect. Her people don't huddle in dung-heap huts. Their tents are lined with silk. Their shamans sing stars into existence. They've built a—"

Saya's jaw tightens. "We don't belong in some frozen wasteland. We're not… tribespeople." The word curdles on her tongue, heavy with Seop's prejudices.

Goeghon leans forward, the saltpeter glowing like crushed moonlight between them. "And what do we belong to here? Rat stew? Debtors' prisons? Look around, Sis." He gestures to the hut's sagging walls, where Sen's failed experiments dangle like grotesque wind chimes. "The magistrate's men will return. Next time, they won't ask politely about fireworks. They'll brand Sen a traitor. You a collaborator. And me?" He smiles bitterly. "A thief."

Saya's knuckles whiten around the knife. "And the north? What's there but ice and bandits?"

"A chance," Goeghon insists. "The Khan's alliance is fragile, yes. But her fire… I've seen it. It's not just ambition. It's hunger. The kind that carves empires from nothing." He reaches into his satchel, withdrawing a folded cloth. Inside lies a shard of Tepr pottery—azure glaze swirling with gold, depicting horsemen charging across a sunlit steppe. "They're not savages."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Saya traces the pottery's edge, her callouses catching on its artistry. "And if we go… we leave everything?"

Sen leaps onto the table, scattering saltpeter. "We'll pack the essentials! My pressure-driven lotus cannon! The acid-spitting teapot! The—"

"—the clothes on your back," Goeghon amends, pinching the bridge of his nose. "We travel light. Avoid imperial patrols. Reach Tepr before the situation changes."

Another crash outside, closer now. The acrid tang of smoke slithers through the cracks. Saya rises, knife still in hand, and strides to the window. Below, a mob surges through the Bamboo Maze—faces smeared with ash, fists clutching torches and fishing spears. A noble's carriage lies overturned, its silken curtains ablaze.

"The sparrow flies!" someone shrieks.

"The crane's neck is brittle!" another answers.

Saya watches a young girl hurl a rock through a tea shop's window. The proprietor, an old man with milky eyes, wails as his livelihood shatters. "They'll burn the whole city," she whispers.

Goeghon joins her, his reflection fractured in the warped glass. "Not our city anymore."

Sen straps on a makeshift backpack fashioned from squid nets and turtle shells. "I'll need sulfur. Mercury. Oh, and a goat!"

Saya's laugh is a brittle thing, sharp with unshed tears. "You'll get us killed."

"But imagine the epitaph!" Sen crows, striking a dramatic pose. "Here lies the genius Sen—She Lit the Sky for Eons!"

The mob's roar swells. Flames dance in the Moon District's direction. Saya turns from the window, her face a mask of weary resolve. She sheathes her knife.

Goeghon pockets the Tepr pottery shard, its gold swirls catching the firelight. Somewhere beyond the smoke, a Khan waits with a crown of embers, and a steppe whispers promises to those brave enough to plant fire in its soil.

Morning mist clings to the port of Pezijil like a jilted lover, its tendrils curling around the jagged masts of the Red Cliff Survivor. The pirate junk looms over the docks, its crimson sails furled but still bleeding color into the gray dawn. Townsfolk skitter past, clutching baskets and children, casting wary glances at the ship's hull—pockmarked with cannon scars and adorned with carvings of lotus flowers strangling serpents. Aboard, the air smells of salt, iron, and the faintest whiff of jasmine tea.

Shan Xi sprawls across a lacquered divan stolen from a Moukopl admiral's villa, her boots propped on a chest spilling silks and silver. Her hair, a storm of black threaded with red ribbons, cascades over shoulders armored in sable fur. She sips tea from a porcelain cup so delicate it might dissolve in her grip. "Lizi, my little viper," she croons, voice honeyed and edged with cutlass sharpness, "tell me everything about our dear Khan's imperial waltz. Did the emperor piss himself when she kissed his ring?"

Lizi slumps against the mast, peeling an orange with a dagger. Her grin is all mischief. "Nah. The man's a bloated walrus in silk. Naci knelt so prettily, swore fealty in that nice shivering voice of hers. They all clapped like trained seals." She flicks a rind into the sea. "Even Lanau looked ready to gut someone. Probably me."

A chorus of snorts erupts from the crew.

"Bet you mooned a magistrate again," cackles Na'er, her face tattooed with cinnabar waves, as she mends a sail.

"I'll blow you up," Lizi sighs.

Shan Xi slams her cup down, tea sloshing. "Kowtowing? Seriously?! After all we did for her? If Naci's turned coat, I'll string her guts!" Her theatrics are undercut by the twinkle in her eye; she lives for crescendos.

Lizi rolls hers. "Relax, you melodramatic squid. It's a ruse. The Khan's no lapdog. She whispered to me after—'Tell Shan Xi the vulture circles, but the hawk waits.'"

"Cryptic and pretentious," Shan Xi sniffs, fanning herself with a fan painted with a nude emperor kissing a eunuch. "Typical warlord nonsense. But fine." She leans forward, suddenly a shark scenting blood. "And the empire's underbelly? Still ripe?"

"Rotten to the core." Lizi licks the juice off the blade.

Shan Xi throws her head back, laughter echoing across the harbor. "Gods, I love this empire! It's a circus where the clowns eat the audience." She snaps her fingers, and a deckhand refills her tea. "So, Naci plays the meek vassal, and we…"

"We," Lizi interjects, smirking, "keep torching their ports and wait for her next move."

Below deck, a bell tolls. The mist lifts, revealing Pezijil's spires clawing at the sky. Shan Xi rises, her shadow slicing the dawn. "Enough tea. Let's give these imperial worms a show." She jerks her chin at the shore, where soldiers cluster like ants. "Raise the sails. And someone fire a warning shot—aim for the governor's new statue."

"The one with the enormous…" Na'er gestures suggestively.

"Especially there."

As cannons roar and the statue's head tumbles into the harbor, Shan Xi winks at Lizi. "Welcome back, my sweetheart."

The Red Cliff Survivor glides away, leaving Pezijil in chaos and laughter trailing like smoke.

The guesthouse room is a carcass picked clean—discarded bandages, empty wine jugs, and the faint musk of sweat and steel lingering in the air. Naci fastens the last buckle on her saddlebag, her movements precise, efficient, as though even restlessness can be weaponized. Fol sits cross-legged on the floor, cradling the flute in his lap, his thumb tracing the carvings as if deciphering an ancient code. Temej tosses a dried fig into the air, Sartak catches it in his mouth, while Lanau leans against the windowsill, a lock of hair dangling like a noose over the bustling street below.

A knock. Sharp, polite, trembling at the edges.

"Enter," Naci says, not glancing up.

The door creaks open, revealing a maid. She curtsies so deeply her nose nearly brushes her knees. "Your carriage awaits."

Naci slings her bag over her shoulder. "Lead on."

The carriage is a gaudy beast, all gold leaf and lacquered ebony, its roof crowned with the Moukopl phoenix—wings spread, talons outstretched. The driver, a man whose uniform strains over his barrel chest, bows with a flourish. "Honored Khan! I am Peng's Third Undersecretary of Equine and Diplomatic Conveyances, at your service. Should you require correspondence with the imperial court, my pigeons are swift and discreet."

Naci arches a brow. "Pigeons?"

"Trained," he assures her. "They shit only on command."

Temej sidles up, squinting at the phoenix. "Think it's edible?"

"The bird or the shit?" Lanau asks.

Fol, lingering at the rear, lets out a hoarse chuckle—the first sound he's made since dawn. Naci's gaze flicks to him, softening imperceptibly, before she turns back to the driver. "We'll consider your… pigeons."

Lanau hoists herself into the carriage, whistling low. "Plush as a pillow. I can't believe we entered this city as pirates and are leaving as princes."

Temej vaults in beside her, nearly upending a crystal decanter of wine. "At least the pirates didn't use words like equine diplomacy."

Naci settles into the velvet cushions, her posture rigid, as though luxury might infect her. Fol hesitates, clutching the flute, until Lanau yanks him down beside her. "Relax, stone-face. It's not a trap. Probably."

The carriage rolls through Pezijil's arteries, its gilded wheels devouring cobblestones as the city exhales the last dregs of dawn. Naci watches the streets blur past, her fingers drumming the rhythm of a war chant on her knee.

"Bet the phoenix's beak is solid gold," Temej muses, squinting up at the roof's gaudy emblem.

The driver's hum cuts off with a strangled "Hyah!" The carriage lurches, throwing Sartak and Uamopak against each other. A chorus of shouts erupts outside—hawkers, beggars, the ceaseless bark of a world waking.

Temej leans out the window, his beard bristling in the breeze. "What's the holdup?"

The driver's voice trembles, sweat glazing his jowls. "A—a rat in the road, Honored Khan! A filthy urchin! I'll have it cleared swiftly!"

Through the lattice, Naci glimpses a small, hooded figure crumpled ahead, knees drawn to a hollow chest. The horses stamp, their harnesses jangling like uneasy spirits. Temej is already shoving the door open, boots hitting the cobbles. "Let's not add child-flattening to today's agenda."

The driver grabs his arm, meaty fingers digging in. "Respectfully, sir, these street vermin are tricksy! Best leave it—"

Temej shakes him off with a snort. "You kiss your mother with that fear of orphans?" He crouches before the child, voice softening. "Hey, little cricket. You hurt?"

The hood tilts up.

A face streaked with grime and defiance glints in the sunlight. Eyes like smoldering coals lock onto Temej, then dart to the carriage. Recognition crackles through the air.

"Meicong," Naci breathes, half-rising.

The driver pales. He lunges for Meicong, but she's already darting past him, a dagger materializing in her hand as she presses its tip to his throat.

"Yile's lapdog barks too loudly," she rasps, her voice raw as a fresh wound. The driver freezes, a drop of blood beading under the blade.

Lanau leans out, eyebrows arched. "So the pigeon master's a spy? Shocking. Next you'll tell me wine's wet."

Naci steps down, her shadow swallowing Meicong's slight frame. "You know Yile? Where is Konir?"

Meicong's laugh is a dry rasp. "His name is Kuan. And he's in Tepr." She jerks her chin at the driver, who whimpers.

The driver's jowls quiver. "Slander! I received orders from His Majesty—"

Naci smirks. "You serve whoever fills your trough." She turns to Meicong. "And you? What trough do you drink from now?"

Meicong sheathes her blade, shoulders sagging. "Yile's. Until I slit his throat." She nods at the driver. "He'll have told the palace our route by sundown. Let me ride with you. I'll trade his secrets for a seat."

Temej whistles. "Bold pitch. What's stopping us from leaving both you traitors in the gutter?"

"The fifty imperial archers stationed at the Northern Wall Fortress," Meicong lies flatly. "Yile's welcome party. Unless you prefer arrows to allies."

Lanau snorts. "She's got flair. I say we risk it. Worst case, we kill her four to one."

The driver scrabbles backward. "This is madness! The Emperor will hear of—"

Naci clicks her tongue. "Drive." She motions Meicong into the carriage. "You have until the fortress to convince me not to kill you."

Meicong slides past, her stench of blood and smoke clashing with the lavender sachets. Fol shifts aside, flute clutched like a ward.

The wheels roll on. Through the latticed window, Pezijil blurs—a smudge of saffron and sin, its spires shrinking like spines on a dragon's back.

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