The rest of the day passed without incident.

The former Paladin moved through Adaranthe's outer districts with the same steady pace he'd maintained since entering the city. He noted patrol patterns. Memorised street layouts. Identified choke points and escape routes. The work was methodical, unglamorous, and necessary.

No one stopped him.

By the time the sun began its descent, he had mapped three districts thoroughly enough to navigate them in darkness. The information was stored away, ready to be used when needed.

He returned to the boarding house as evening settled over the city. The woman behind the counter looked up as he entered, then returned her attention to the ledger in front of her without comment. The stairs creaked under his weight. The hallway on the third floor was empty, doors closed, voices muffled behind thin walls.

His room was as he'd left it.

He locked the door and set the blades against the wall within arm's reach. The window showed the street below, still busy despite the fading light. Carts rolled past. Workers returned home. A merchant closed his shutters and barred them from inside.

The former Paladin sat on the edge of the bed and removed his boots. His hands were clean. The blood had been washed away hours ago at the public well. The blades had been wiped and sheathed properly. No evidence remained on him of what had happened in that alley.

But Adaranthe would know by now. Bodies were found quickly in cities this size. Too many people moving through too many spaces for a corpse to lie undiscovered for long. Someone would have stumbled across the Paladin by midafternoon at the latest. Guards would have been summoned. The body identified. And then the cogs would begin to turn.

He lay back on the bed, still dressed, and stared at the ceiling. Sleep came eventually

While he rested, the Church moved.

In the east barracks near the river gate, three paladins gathered in a room that smelled of lamp oil and old stone. They were told their brother was dead. The body had been found in an alley in the outer districts, throat cut, ankle severed.

The wound patterns suggested someone who knew what they were doing. Someone trained.

Questions followed. Where had he been assigned that day? Who had seen him last? Had he mentioned anything unusual? The answers came slowly, reluctantly. He'd been in the outer districts. Alone. Enforcement work. Nothing unusual about that. He'd done it dozens of times before without incident. But this time was different. This time, he hadn't come back.

Clerks wrote while the paladins spoke. Every detail was recorded in neat, precise script. Times. Locations. Patrol routes. The information would be compiled, analysed, and cross-referenced with other reports. Orders were sealed before midnight. Patrols would be doubled in the affected districts.

Church presence would increase visibly. The local guard would be informed and instructed to cooperate fully. Enforcement actions would continue, but no paladin would move alone anymore.

And quietly, without announcement, a directive was sent to Ganut's church in Orserion. One of their paladins was dead. Murdered. In a human city where they operated under contract.

The diplomatic implications would take days to fully materialise, but the immediate response was already in motion. Doctrine was applied without hesitation. Violence against a paladin was violence against the Church itself.

The perpetrator would be found. Justice would be served. And if the local population needed to be reminded of the cost of defiance, then reminders would be provided.

By morning, Adaranthe would feel the difference.

Gabriel woke before dawn.

The room was dark, the street outside still quiet. He lay motionless for a moment, listening. Footsteps in the hallway. Voices downstairs. The creak of floorboards settling. Nothing unusual yet, but something felt different. The quality of the silence had changed.

He rose and moved to the window. The street below was empty.

Too empty for this hour.

Workers should have been moving by now, heading toward the factories and warehouses. Carts should have been rolling, merchants setting up their stalls.

But the street was still. He watched for several minutes. A door opened across the way, then closed quickly. A man peered out from an alley entrance, looked both directions, then retreated. Shutters remained closed on buildings that should have been opening.

Something had changed overnight.

He collected his blades and left the room. The woman behind the counter was gone. The ledger sat closed on the desk, quill resting beside it. The boarding house felt different. Quieter. More tense. He pushed through the door and stepped onto the street.

The change was immediate and unmistakable.

Fewer people moved through the district now. Those who did kept their heads down, eyes forward, conversations muted to whispers that died quickly when footsteps approached. Doors that should have been open for business stood closed and barred.

The normal rhythm of the city had been disrupted, replaced by something heavier. Watchful.

And everywhere, white cloaks.

Patrols moved through the streets in pairs, sometimes groups of three. Church colors visible where they hadn't been the day before. Not just guards now.

Paladins walked among them, armour polished, weapons visible, eyes scanning the crowds with deliberate attention. The presence was unmistakable.

A message being sent without words.

Gabriel kept his pace steady, joining the sparse flow of bodies moving through the district. The illusion held. Eyes passed over him without recognition, but the atmosphere had shifted around him like pressure before a storm.

People spoke more quietly now. Laughter was absent. The normal noise of the city had been dampened, replaced by a collective wariness that hadn't existed the day before.

He turned down a side street and slowed. A checkpoint had been erected overnight. Two guards and a paladin stood at the intersection, stopping travellers, asking questions, checking faces against something written on parchment.

The line moved slowly. People answered when spoken to and moved on quickly when dismissed. This was new. This was a response. The Church asserting itself, reminding the population that certain deaths mattered more than others.

The former Paladin turned and took a different route, circling around the checkpoint entirely. The illusion would hold under casual inspection, but sustained questioning was a different matter. Better to avoid it entirely.

He emerged onto a main avenue three blocks over. More patrols here. More white cloaks. The church's presence had doubled overnight, maybe more. The city had noticed. Adaranthe had absorbed one death without reaction yesterday. One body in an alley was statistical, unremarkable. But this was different.

He walked through it all.

He had killed one paladin. The Church had responded by putting more on the streets. And somewhere in the architecture of that response, information was being compiled. Patterns analysed. Witnesses sought.

The hunt had begun, and the city would bleed for it until answers were found.

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