The markers were no longer suggestions.
They were checked.
At first, it was small things. A guard pausing longer than necessary. A clerk glancing twice at a pass before handing it back. Names written down and compared later, away from the street.
He noticed because the pauses followed him.
Not closely.
Not openly.
Just enough to be felt.
On the third morning, a man was stopped at the eastern depot.
He was a porter, carrying grain sacks marked for the upper wards. His route crossed a restricted junction—one the markers had claimed the night before.
"I've always gone this way," the man said, shifting the weight on his shoulder.
"That's no longer relevant," the guard replied.
"I have delivery orders."
The guard looked past him, toward the marker fixed into the stone beside the road. "You'll have to go around."
"That adds half an hour."
"Yes."
The porter hesitated, then adjusted his grip and turned back.
He did not look at him as he passed.
By midday, the detours had multiplied.
Carts queued where they never had before. Goods arrived late, or not at all. Arguments flared briefly, then cooled when uniforms stepped closer.
No one mentioned the reason aloud.
They did not need to.
That afternoon, a runner misread a marker.
He crossed into a restricted stretch of street by mistake, breathless and distracted, focused on the seal of the message in his hand.
The stop was immediate.
The questioning was not.
He stood to one side while papers were checked, authority confirmed, orders reviewed. Minutes passed. Then more.
The message arrived late.
No one asked what it had contained.
He remained where he had been assigned.
He moved when directed. Stopped when told. Waited through inspections that had nothing to do with him personally.
The ache did not come.
The ground beneath the restricted streets remained firm.
That appeared to please the inspectors.
By evening, the first punishment was issued.
Not loudly. Not publicly.
A clerk was reassigned for procedural failure.
A guard was docked pay for inattentiveness.
A porter was barred from depot access pending review.
None of them had questioned the rules.
None of that mattered.
He stood near the boundary marker outside his workspace and watched a family turn back from a closed road, confusion plain on their faces.
They did not argue.
They recalculated and went another way.
The city adjusted.
That night, a warehouse roof collapsed in the southern quarter.
Outside every restricted zone.
No reinforcement had been added there. No markers placed. It had not been scheduled for inspection.
Two men were injured.
The report was brief.
Unrelated, it concluded.
By morning, enforcement increased.
More guards.
Clearer routes.
Sharper consequences.
The inspector from the Crown signed the orders with a steady hand.
"This will stabilize movement," he said.
No one contradicted him.
He folded the updated route list and placed it where he had been told.
Beyond the markers, the city continued to shift and strain in places the rules did not touch.
The ground remained silent beneath his feet.
And because the rules worked—where they were enforced—they would not be questioned.