The crowd's noise changed.
Not louder—different. The specific quality of noise that arrived when something significant happened that nobody had fully predicted, the crowd processing a shift in real time and expressing the processing before the expression was fully formed.
Sevon looked at the interior of his grid.
A significant section—partially cleared.
The deep layering reduced.
Not gone—he still had density in the interior, still had more lines than a single fighter crossing the boundary would be able to avoid. But less than he had built. Less than he had intended to have when the crossing came.
He looked at Cintra.
She was at the boundary.
Four feet away from his intact grid.
