The new measures worked.
At first.
Routes held longer. Repairs stayed in place. Schedules adjusted and remained predictable enough to soothe irritation. Reports thinned. Margins stayed clean.
The word overuse appeared less often, then not at all.
Men relaxed.
The city did not.
He remained assigned to logistics.
No one spoke to him about the changes. No one watched him more closely than before. He carried ledgers, delivered notices, stood in rooms where decisions were made without his presence mattering.
That suited him.
The ache never returned.
Days passed without incident. Then weeks.
The ground held.
For the moment.
The first failure came quietly.
A reinforced road section failed at dawn, stone giving way where it had always held before. It closed the route for half a day. Nothing more.
Engineers blamed old mortar and moved on.
The second failure followed two days later.
A storehouse roof sagged under its own weight and had to be evacuated. Supplies were saved. Confidence did not return.
The reinforcement was noted as excessive.
The explanation spread easily.
It fit.
He noticed the pattern before anyone else did.
Not because he understood it — only because he was present when nothing happened.
Places where he stood did not fail immediately.Places he had passed through failed later.Places he had not been near failed without pattern or agreement.
He did not write this down.
He did not know how.
At the end of the month, the Choir arrived.
Not in robes. Not in procession. Just three figures at the gates, papers in hand, faces already forgettable.
They were shown the reports.
They read quietly.
They asked questions no one could answer.
Then they stopped asking.
The officer who had reassigned him once before summoned him again.
"You will remain here," the man said, eyes on the ledger. "For the time being."
"Yes, sir."
"There will be no further adjustments to your posting."
"Yes, sir."
The officer hesitated.
"Do you hear anything?" he asked.
He looked up.
"No, sir."
The officer nodded, satisfied, and dismissed him.
That night, the river rose higher than it should have.
Not enough to flood. Not enough to alarm. Just enough to press against stone that had been shored too often, too rigidly.
A section of wall cracked and gave way.
Water spilled through.
Men rushed to contain it. Barriers were raised. Orders shouted. The breach was sealed before dawn.
The city stood.
Barely.
By morning, new notices were posted.
Movement restricted. Loads reduced. Repairs authorized without delay.
The language was confident.
Reassuring.
Wrong.
He stood on the road outside the depot as carts were turned away and rerouted.
The ground beneath his feet was still.
No ache.No pressure.No warning.
Nothing answered.
Far beyond the walls, past fields and rivers and kingdoms that trusted signs and voices and gods, the world continued to hold its silence.
And because of that, it would not stop.