Quinlan stood at the rail of Luminareth's high balcony with hundreds of thousands of elves on their knees below him, petals still coming down like warm snow, and read the quiet script only he could see.
[Peoples of Iskaris conquered: 1/4]
[Reward: ???]
The roar of his brand-new nation climbed the palace face in waves, and in the middle of all that joy its brand-new sovereign was reading a floating window like fine print.
'Dwarves, humans, beastkin,' he mused. 'It even wrote me a to-do list.'
He flicked the window shut, question marks and all, and filed the whole thing away for a quieter hour, because the sound below him was changing.
The roar drew itself in, pulling back from the walls and walkways the way a tide leaves a shore, wave after wave folding into an enormous, breathing hush, until a city of hundreds of thousands held one collective breath. Faces upturned. Ears high.
"He will speak," someone whispered far below, and the whisper traveled better than the horns had.
