The meeting room beneath the western council wing had no windows.
One wall was instead occupied by a vast projection of Nuria and the countries surrounding it, the old imperial borders overlaid with the political map Arik knew from the world outside the Gate.
Agaron dominated much of the territory south of Nuria now, its borders considerably larger than those preserved in Nurian archives. Damian and Gabriel had absorbed most of the smaller southern regions into the empire over the decades, turning what the old maps showed as scattered kingdoms and independent territories into provinces under Agaron's authority.
Pais remained Pais, remarkably unchanged compared with the other states around them.
Farther away, Donin was ruled by Christian, Damian's younger brother.
Wrohan had changed hands much more recently.
George was dead, and Rex now held Wrohan's throne.
The difficulty was not understanding the world outside.
