The fire had burned low in the meeting hall, but the heat of politics clung to the air like smoke—stifling, sour, and impossible to escape.
I stood near the far end of the war council table, hands behind my back, watching as another overly ambitious mouth attempted to dress theft in the robes of strategy.
I wasn't sure why I was here. I tended to be brought in more for when Mingyu needed a wreacking ball instead of someone that was well versed in court language.
"…and as I proposed three weeks prior," Minister Zhou Wen said, lifting his chin just enough to catch the light on his self-inked memorial, "disrupting the tributary flow from the Baiguang border into the lowland farms was the decisive factor in halting their grain movement. That is the result of proper logistical mapping—not just brute force. A proud victory for the strategy division, Your Highness."
