The map had changed.
Nix spread the updated territorial survey across the Council table — a work of cartographic precision that the Kobold had produced in the three weeks since the ceasefire. Every grid line redrawn. Every border updated. Every settlement marked with its current status: population, temple attendance, production capacity, defense readiness.
The Iron Covenant's territory had expanded south by two hundred kilometers. The former buffer zone — grasslands, border towns, the no-man's-land that had separated Zephyr's domain from Demeterra's — was theirs. Three former Rootist settlements had converted in the war's wake: Millstone Bridge, Thornpost, and a farming village called Pale Rest that had been part of Seylith's territory and had chosen to join the Covenant rather than remain independent.
