Gabriel watched the quarry work.
Stone moved from cut to cart in a steady rhythm, driven by repetition rather than haste. Picks and sledges worked the rock in time, and the lifts hauled loads up the terraces as chains rattled and pulleys turned without pause. The site remained quiet. There was no shouting, no panic, and no urgency beyond what the labor required.
The Church had organized it well.
Guards stood where they needed to stand, not as a line or a wall, but at narrow points where paths crossed and workers passed close. Their placement controlled movement without interrupting it, enough to reinforce ownership without slowing the work.
Gabriel stayed above them.
He lay against the cold stone and measured the site the way he measured streets. It was the same method he had used in Eldenreach, back when Hanitz had taught him to stop looking for meaning and start accounting for function.
Count first.
