On the afternoon after the meeting, Louis sent men to knock on the doors of every lord and representative who had attended.
They left only a casual message: "Gather at the northern city wall. There's something I want you all to see for yourselves."
He offered no explanation, merely instructing the attendants to prepare cloaks and portable heaters.
And so the nobles who had been drinking tea in velvet chairs just yesterday, discussing cooperation and profit sharing, were forced to climb Frost Glaive City's newly built walls in the biting wind and snow.
They thought Louis was merely putting on airs, or arranging some sort of ceremonial inspection for the lords.
But when they stood atop the wall and saw the black torrent gathering outside the city, every hopeful assumption and idle guess was crushed in an instant.
Louis had summoned them not for a ceremony, but to let them witness the approaching danger-and the power of Red Tide-with their own eyes.
Only genuine fear could make these men, still clinging to the traditions of the old nobility, understand why military authority had to be handed to Red Tide.
And only by standing on these walls amid the howling wind and snow, facing the regular army bearing down on them,
could they truly realize that the old Northern Frontier was dead, and that a new Northern Frontier could only be reborn through iron and fire.
The wind of the Northern Frontier howled atop Frost Glaive City's northern wall, as though the entire Ice Plains were roaring.
The sky hung oppressively low. The wind tore the blizzard into white lashes that struck the battlements and banners with dull cracks.
Yet more chilling than the wind and snow was the steadily approaching vibration that made even the air tremble.
At first,