Aven stood over a large, detailed map of the Dominion's central provinces, pinning small red flags into the parchment.
He had spent the last three weeks dissecting the forty years of intercepted communications from the Korthane Attaché. Most of the messages were logistical updates on the Halvern pipeline, passed through an elaborate network of dead drops in Ashenveil.
But there were three messages, spanning two decades, that referenced the "second channel"—the operative known as the Archivist. And those messages had not been routed through Ashenveil. They had been left in rural, provincial dead drops.
Aven stepped back and looked at the map. Three red flags formed a rough, lopsided triangle across the mid-tier industrial heartland.
"Province Four, Province Six, and Province Seven," Aven murmured to himself.
