The market did not erupt.
It adjusted.
District One to the left. District Two to the right. Tokens held higher now, as if visibility itself were proof of obedience. The enforcers did not draw weapons. They drew space—three steps between each group, a corridor cut through the square so movement could be observed, redirected, corrected.
Kael watched the corridor form.
He did not step into it.
He stepped to the edge of the grain booth instead and counted the clerks again. Two at the ledger. One stamping validation marks. One refilling the measured scoops. Four total. Six enforcers visible. Two more at the southern archway pretending not to be stationed there.
He traced the movement in his head. Tokens checked. Household count confirmed. Mark applied. Grain issued. Next.
"It bottlenecks here," he murmured, almost to himself.
A clerk glanced up. "If you're not in line—"
"It bottlenecks at verification," Kael said calmly. "Not at distribution. You're forcing the count to happen at the front instead of before."
The clerk frowned, defensive. "Orders."
"I know."
That was the problem.
Behind him, the line tightened.
Iri stood with the boy who held two tokens. The boy's district mark was faded, nearly rubbed from the edge. An enforcer noticed.
"Hold," the enforcer said, placing two fingers against the boy's chest, not hard but firm enough to stop him. "Mark's unclear."
"It's there," Iri said quickly. "He's from Low Weave. Same as me."
"Household count?" the enforcer asked.
"Three."
The enforcer checked the ledger. "Registered two."
The boy's breathing grew shallow. "My brother's been working the outer wall. He hasn't—"
"Not in registry," the enforcer said. "Two portions."
The boy looked at his two tokens like they had betrayed him.
Iri opened her mouth.
Lyria saw it from the corridor. Her hand tightened near her hilt. She could step forward. She could correct the enforcer. She could remind him of discretion.
She didn't.
Because if she corrected one, she would have to correct ten. And if she corrected ten, she would undermine the directive before it settled.
Steel is simple, she thought. Patience is not.
The enforcer snapped one token clean in half and returned the other.
The sound was small.
It carried anyway.
The boy did not cry. That was what made it worse.
Kael turned at the sound and saw the break happen. He did not look at the boy first. He looked at the ledger.
"They're counting bodies that aren't present," he said under his breath. "But they're not counting labor contributions."
A man near him scoffed. "What difference does that make?"
Kael's eyes flicked to the half-token on the ground. "It makes a distribution difference."
The man stared, confused and angry. "He's hungry."
"Yes," Kael said. "Which means the system is misaligned."
The man stepped back from him slightly.
Iri bent, picked up the broken token, and slipped it into her sleeve as if broken things still had value.
The boy stepped aside with one portion instead of two.
The line moved.
Above, on the balcony, Soryn watched the corridor hold.
"No shouting," the scribe noted quietly.
"Not yet," Soryn said.
"Shall we post the curfew proposal?"
"Draft it," she replied. "Not post. Draft."
The scribe hesitated. "District-wide?"
Soryn's gaze drifted to Low Weave.
"Targeted," she said. "If unrest escalates, curfew applies to districts with irregular registry compliance."
"That will read like punishment."
"It will read like stabilization," she corrected.
Below, Garron shifted his weight beside Maera.
"That wasn't random," Garron said, nodding toward the broken token.
"No," Maera replied. "It was policy."
Kethra struck her hammer harder than necessary. Sparks flared and died against stone.
Riko watched the boy walk away with one portion and a straight back.
The line remembered that sound.
Further down, a woman tried to step forward with a neighbor's token tucked inside her sleeve.
The clerk caught it.
"No secondary collection without authorization."
"She's sick," the woman said.
"Then she should be registered as sick."
"She can't walk."
"Then she can't collect."
The woman's face drained.
Lyria stepped forward this time—but not to draw steel.
She moved beside the clerk and lowered her voice.
"Send an enforcer," she said quietly. "Verify in person. Mark it as exception."
The clerk stiffened. "We weren't told to allow exceptions."
"You were told to prevent escalation."
The clerk looked at the woman. At the line. At the corridor.
At Lyria's eyes.
"Fine," she muttered. "One verification. Logged."
The woman sagged in relief.
Lyria stepped back immediately.
A compromise. Small. Contained.
She told herself that was enough.
Kael watched the exchange closely.
"You just created a secondary path," he said softly, almost impressed. "Field verification."
Lyria glanced at him sharply. "And you are?"
"Observing."
"That's not a role."
"It will be."
She studied him for a moment, unsettled by how little emotion sat behind his gaze.
"Don't confuse observation with permission," she said.
"I don't," he replied.
Near the southern archway, Sable Crier adjusted his stall sign.
He had already begun selling small parchment slips labeled Sleep Priority. People believed it meant they would be seen sooner tomorrow.
It meant nothing.
It sold quickly.
By midday, the grain line moved faster—but tighter.
District separation became habit within hours. People corrected one another before enforcers needed to. Tokens were raised automatically. Household counts were recited without prompt.
The corridor held.
Kael stood near the ledger again, eyes scanning.
"If verification happened by district the night before," he murmured, "the morning flow would double."
The clerk snapped, "Do you want the job?"
"Yes," he said.
She stared at him.
He wasn't joking.
Riko tugged at Kethra's sleeve.
"Why don't they just give more?" he asked.
Kethra didn't stop hammering.
"Because more isn't the problem," she said. "Control is."
Riko didn't understand the difference.
He would.
As the sun lowered, the market did not riot.
It reorganized.
Iri left with less than she needed.
The boy walked home carrying one portion and silence.
The woman with the sick neighbor followed an enforcer toward Low Weave.
Lyria sheathed a sword she never drew.
Kael memorized the rhythm of the ledger.
And above them, Soryn approved a draft marked Temporary Curfew Proposal — Provisional Stabilization Only.
She pressed the seal lightly, not fully.
Not yet.
The market dispersed in order.
But the line did not disappear.
It settled into memory.
And memory, in Vaeroth, was beginning to look like infrastructure.