Exactly six months had passed since Red Tide took over Greyrock Province.
The conference room in Black Iron City was quiet.
Outside, the chilly light of an early autumn morning was narrowed by thick curtains into a slender beam that fell across the long black walnut table.
The air did not yet carry the biting chill of frost, only a hint of coolness. A token fire burned in the hearth, sparing those inside the need for coats.
Louis sat at the head of the table, his cloak draped over the back of his chair, gently twirling a pen between his fingers.
"Lord Louis." When Green entered, a trace of the chill outside clung to his shoulders. He carried a thick roll of parchment in his arms.
Louis nodded, dispensing with pleasantries, and signaled for Green to begin his report. "Get straight to it."
Green placed the parchment in the center of the table, pressed both hands against it, and pulled it open.
As the map unfurled, several people in the room instinctively raised their heads.
It was no longer the map of the old Greyrock nobles' domains they had seen six months earlier.
There were no mottled patches of color, no densely packed coats of arms, no boundaries carving the province into fragments.
Only red lines remained on the parchment, crisscrossing from the Governor's Office to mines, river valleys, workers' barracks, outposts, villages, and towns.
The lines varied in thickness, their junctions densely clustered, like the blood vessels and nerves of a body.
Louis slowly traced the edge of the map with his fingertips, his gaze pausing at each junction of red lines.
Green straightened and reported, "My lord, Greyrock Province's transformation under your Red Tide System Plan is complete."
He pointed to the center of the map. "Seven hundred