Dawn in the west was not gentle.
The sun rose like a blade dragged across the horizon, slicing light through stone and dust. Xianyin stood on the ramparts of Blackstone Fortress, her cloak snapping violently in the wind, grit stinging her cheeks.
Below, the land stretched endlessly.
Cracked earth. Sparse scrub. Dry riverbeds that looked like scars.
No wonder the capital had called it the wasteland.
"You see it now."
Kael's voice came from behind her. Not intrusive. Simply present.
"I see a land that has been abandoned," Xianyin replied. "Not one that failed."
He leaned his forearms on the stone beside her. "Every year, we import grain from three kingdoms. Every year, they raise prices. Every year, more soldiers starve."
"And yet you still defend their borders," she said.
"Because if we fall, they fall next."
Xianyin nodded slowly. "Short-sightedness dressed as alliance."
Kael glanced at her. "You speak like a minister."
"I was raised by one," she said. Then, more quietly, "And destroyed by another."
He did not press.
That, she noted, mattered.
They rode that morning.
No ceremony. No guards in formation. Just Kael, Xianyin, and three scouts who treated her not as royalty—but as someone who had to earn the right to be here.
She dismounted beside a dry ravine where villagers had gathered, their faces weathered, their eyes sharp with suspicion.
A child stared openly at her silk sleeves.
A woman bowed only halfway.
No one knelt.
Kael spoke first. "This is my wife."
No embellishment.
Xianyin stepped forward. She knelt.
The village gasped.
She pressed her palm to the soil.
It was dry. Starved. But beneath the surface—cool.
"Where does the water run during the rains?" she asked.
An elder blinked. "Nowhere. It floods, then vanishes."
"Because it's being stolen by the stone," she murmured. "The land isn't dead. It's bleeding out."
She stood. "You build wells too deep. You plow too shallow. And you burn the soil to survive winter."
Murmurs rippled.
Kael's eyes sharpened. "Explain."
"The floods carry nutrients," she said. "You let them go. Redirect them. Trap them. Feed the earth before you feed yourselves."
One farmer scoffed. "Easy words for a woman who's never starved."
Xianyin turned to him.
"I have eaten rice mixed with ash," she said evenly. "And buried people who were lighter than the blankets that covered them."
Silence fell.
She met Kael's gaze. "Give me one season."
His jaw tightened. "If you fail?"
"Then I stop advising," she said. "And you lose nothing you weren't already losing."
Kael studied her for a long moment.
Then he nodded. "One season."
That night, Xianyin did not sleep.
She drew maps by candlelight. Old irrigation methods. Crop rotations the capital had abandoned generations ago. Fertilization techniques learned through famine, refined through failure.
She did not notice Kael watching from the doorway.
"You'll exhaust yourself," he said.
"Good," she replied without looking up. "That means I'm still useful."
He stepped inside. "You don't need to prove your worth here."
She finally looked at him. "Yes, I do. Just not the way they demanded it."
Something unspoken passed between them.
Respect, still fragile.
Trust, barely seeded.
Outside, the wasteland waited.
And beneath its cracked surface, something stirred.