Kaelen's pov
I was already in the lower district before the sun was fully up.
The streets were quiet then, the morning light still gray, the city not yet awake. I moved through them the way I always did, unhurried, deliberate, keeping to the edges where the shadows still held. I knew these streets better than I knew my own face. Had walked them a thousand times, in a thousand different ways, always watching, always waiting.
The distribution point was easy to find. I followed the sound of carts, the smell of grain, the low murmur of voices as the volunteers set up their tables. I stayed at the edge of the square, in the shadow of a doorway, and watched.
The volunteers were organized. The provisions were moving. The lines were already forming, people with empty baskets, tired faces, the particular hunger that comes from weeks of not enough. The grain flowed from wagons to tables to hands, steady and methodical.
