The biting winter winds sweeping down from the jagged peaks of the Kurogane Mountain Range whipped through the newly reconstructed iron-stone avenues of Azure Fall City. The sky remained a bruised, heavy slate gray, dropping endless flurries of dry snow that coated the sloped roofs and filled the deep ruts left by heavy cargo wagons. The eastern border had won its survival, but the aftermath of war brought a different kind of suffocating pressure.
News of Azure Fall City falling to the Rising Sun Empire, followed by its swift and miraculous recapture, had spread through the central capital like wildfire. The Heavenly Dragon Throne did not celebrate unexpected anomalies without rigorous verification.
It took exactly one week for the heavy, gilded carriages of the Capital Audit Delegation to traverse the frozen mountain passes and arrive at the city gates.
