The horses pulled up hard.
The sound of hooves grinding against stone filled the road, and then silence swallowed everything else. Not the comfortable kind. The kind that pressed down on your chest and made you want to move but your legs forgot how.
Every bystander that had still been lingering took that silence as their signal. They backed away fast, pressing into walls, ducking behind corners. Shop doors clicked shut one by one down the street. Locks turned. Faces appeared at gaps in wooden shutters, eyes wide, peering out at the road.
Because everyone recognized the man at the front.
A captain. Royal Guard, one of the branch units, People in this city knew the crest on his chest the same way they knew the color of fire. And just like fire, nothing good followed when a captain showed up personally.
The captain sat on his horse and looked down at Ken.
Ken looked back up at him.
