Calm is expensive.
That is what no one admits out loud.
They talk about peace like it’s a natural state, something that settles when the shouting stops and the streets grow quiet. But real calm is maintained. Curated. Enforced in ways that don’t always look like force until you try to disrupt it.
By the second night of Candle patrols, the city feels… smoother.
Fewer arguments spill into the open. Fewer raised voices echo down the alleys. People walk with purpose, heads lowered, steps measured to the pace of reassurance.
“We’re sleeping better,” someone says at a market stall.
“Things feel under control,” another agrees.
Kael hears it all.
And he hears what isn’t said.
The cost shows up first in the watchers’ reports.
Not crimes.
Concerns.
A man redirected from a street gatherin
