In the days after the fleet retreated, the Bone City changed shape.
What had been a strong independent stronghold became the temporary capital of the alliance by simple necessity. Leaders of smaller powers who had stayed away from the first gathering now arrived daily, bringing ships, supplies, and formal declarations of temporary allegiance. Banners of colours I had never seen before joined the crimson, the pink-and-violet, and the ash-grey along the towers and harbour walls. The streets filled with people who spoke different dialects of the same practical language: survival under a single centre rather than separate extinction under the great clans.
