Inside the Council Chamber of Conqueror's Holdfast.
At the end of the long table, Liu Qian reclined in a high-backed chair, his gaze resting on the parchment spread before him.
Moluo Xu had sent back a secret report: Young Griff had already led his army past Tarth and was about to land in the Stormlands.
Just then, the chamber door opened. The newcomer was Hal, Governor of Lys and commander of its fleet.
"Your Majesty."
After so long apart, Hal's voice held a faint note of excitement.
He had come from Lys this time over a matter of great importance.
He sat down, took a roll of parchment from his sleeve, and placed it on the table before Liu Qian.
"Your Majesty, three days ago, in the waters off Lys, one of our patrol fleets discovered three flat-bottomed merchant ships laden with Yidi immigrants and flying the flags of Asabhad and Qarth. They had been burned down to charred keels and were drifting at sea. Not one of the bodies we recovered was intact...
"There was only one survivor. He had clung to a plank in the freezing sea for almost a day and was delirious from the cold, but we learned a few things from him. These were all found on the bodies, too. The evidence is irrefutable. Volantis did this!"
Liu Qian's eyes turned cold as he looked at the evidence.
From Rowan's arrival with the first three hundred thousand people to the steady stream of Yidi people now delivered by merchants from Asabhad and Qarth, the entire Three Daughters region already held four hundred thousand Yidi subjects.
The Yidi people were Liu Qian's core support. He absolutely could not stand by and do nothing.
Lys was an essential stop for Yidi immigrants.
Hal continued, "Those vermin in