The Green Divide

The secret is out. The argument over the water has only grown larger. Northern cities want the flows they believe were taken from them. Communities along the Meridian want control of the infrastructure beneath their feet. The central Authority warns that fragmented operation could destroy the network entirely. And in the Green Basin, people already live on the water others intend to reclaim. Mara Venn arrives carrying the most complete audited history of the Meridian's failures—but evidence does not give her the right to decide for an entire connected system. Tarin Sol brings hard-earned legitimacy among the line communities, but no claim large enough to speak for everyone dependent on the network. At Ksar Null, those competing claims converge on infrastructure capable of changing water distribution across the Meridian. Negotiations begin under mounting physical pressure, while armed factions move closer and seasonal runoff threatens to turn political deadlock into system failure. There is no hidden reserve large enough to satisfy everyone. The final problem is harder: how to divide a finite resource without giving any one faction the power to sacrifice everybody else.