Now Brannoc understood the easy trust he'd seen before the man's arrival. These people believed in the future their emperor was bringing them, and every beam they raised together helped make it real.
The elf who'd protected the men beneath the crane needed the dwarf's ironwork and the human's carpentry as much as they needed her magic. Helping each other meant getting closer to something they all wanted.
Under Quinlan, humans, elves, dwarves, and beastkin were becoming one people. Brannoc could hear it in the pride with which they shouted for their emperor, each eager to see what he would bring them next.
Give these people time, and that unfinished harbor would be crowded with masts, its workshops lit through the night, its slips launching vessels into waters that would carry them far beyond this continent.
His hunger for it hurt.
