"My people."
A hundred thousand heads snapped upward.
Quinlan stood on the roof of the market hall with his helmet no longer hiding his face. His magic carried his voice across every street, every building. Every warm floor and frosted window heard him as clearly as if he were standing in the room.
"The move is done and the gate is closing."
He raised one hand toward the Warp Gate and let it go.
The gate collapsed inward, its edges folding like paper caught in a flame.
The drain vanished with it.
The relief hit him like a physical blow. The anvil that had been crushing his chest for the entire afternoon simply ceased to exist, and mana flooded back into his channels so fast his knees nearly buckled. His vision swam. The world tilted, steadied, and the air in his lungs tasted different, lighter, as if he'd been breathing through cloth for hours and someone had finally ripped it away.
He locked his legs, kept his posture, and let the crowd see nothing.
