Only people, standing at a crossroads, who chose themselves over the world they were breaking—and walked away, believing the darkness would hide what they had done. Days passed, and the consequences began to surface in subtle ways, the kind that only those trained in suspicion would notice. A watch was changed at the wrong hour. A supply caravan failed to arrive. A trusted messenger vanished between two familiar checkpoints. Each incident alone was explainable.
Together, they formed a pattern—one that tightened like a noose around the city’s unseen throat. Whispers spread before truths ever did. Markets buzzed with rumors dressed up as jokes, and taverns echoed with half-remembered warnings from men too drunk to be taken seriously. People felt the shift long before they understood it. There was a tension in the air, a collective instinct that something essential had been misplaced, like a missing step on a staircase everyone climbed every day.
