The rain in the capital Sorgos, had started. It was the kind of weather that dulled sound but carried whispers further than they were meant to go.
In the lower districts, the morning began with a line, literally.
Hundreds of women, wrapped in mourning clothes, stood before the gates.
They were there for the widow's pension disbursement—the very lifeline Elias had personally signed into law to balance the "Iron" of the front with the mercy of the capital.
The gates remained closed.
"Verification review," the junior clerk stammered through the iron grate, his face pale.
"A discrepancy in the Southern census. All payments are suspended for forty-eight hours pending a secondary audit. It's a matter of structural integrity."
The paperwork he held was perfectly legitimate. It bore the heavy, violet wax of the Royal Strategic Office. It cited a real, albeit minor, clerical error in the Draeven Forgeholds' recruitment logs.
