Reports lay scattered across his desk now. Rainfall records. Grain ledgers. Temple complaints. Provincial letters written in careful language by men trying very hard not to admit panic. The central region had not collapsed, not yet, but the signs were there. Lack of rain. Rotting grain. Famine pressure. Merchants requesting transport permissions with too much urgency and too little explanation. The sort of slow disaster that could be called manageable until the day it was no longer anything of the sort.
Ludwig stared at the reports, then looked toward the map spread across the Emperor's desk.
The central region sat far from Solania.
Far from the north.
Far from the direction Sloth had withdrawn.
That made everything worse.
Gluttony was moving through hunger. Sloth waited behind an army. Clementine was missing. The Shrike had escaped. The Holy Order was broken enough to be dangerous and desperate enough to be unpredictable.
There were too many fires.
