The step behind him didn't get lost when the street opened up. It stayed with him, same distance, even as people crossed between them.
Roen moved past a cloth stall, fabric brushing his arm as he shifted slightly, then turned off the main street without slowing. The lane ahead was tighter, ground uneven, walls closing in on both sides. The noise dropped off. Fewer voices. Less movement.
A broken section of wall sat ahead, stones missing near the base, a gap just wide enough to slip through.
Roen walked toward it.
He eased his pace a touch as he passed a stack of crates against the wall. One leaned where the wood had split, the top corner hanging loose. He stepped around it, heel catching the edge with a scrape, then settled back into his stride.
The steps behind him shifted with it.
Still there.
He took a couple more steps, then slowed again.
The air behind him shifted.
A scrape close.
Something came in from his left, already halfway there, the edge angling toward his neck. Roen dropped forward on instinct, foot digging into the ground as his shoulder dipped. The blade skimmed past the back of his collar, tugging the fabric as it missed.
His elbow drove back at the same time, short and tight. It caught the attacker's arm for a split second solid then slid off as the man shifted with it, already moving out of the line.
Second strike.
Lower.
The angle changed without pause, the blade cutting in toward his ribs from a tighter line. Roen turned into it, torso twisting, his hand snapping down to catch the wrist enough to push the edge off its path. The contact lasted a fraction. Not a grab. Just a touch that changed where it landed.
His foot came in tight, closing the distance before the attacker could widen the swing. He drove his knee up the middle, hard, forcing space between them, but the man shifted back just enough, giving ground without losing balance.
Dark cloth brushed his arm.
A mask no face behind it.
Roen kept moving.
His next movement came straight through the gap his knee had made, a short strike toward where the head should be. It didn't land. The figure's upper body shifted just enough, the motion small, efficient, the strike passing close but missing clean.
The space opened.
Roen stepped in.
His foot hit loose dirt near the wall and shifted under him. He caught it, but it slowed him just enough
The man took it.
A hand slipped through his guard toward his throat, not wide, not hard, just placed where it forced a reaction. Roen knocked it off line, but by the time his arm came back up the opening was already gone.
His weight had already dropped back, body turning before Roen could close again. One step, then another, faster, cutting across the lane toward the broken section of wall. His foot hit the stone and pushed off, carrying him up and over in a single motion.
Roen reached the wall a moment later.
Empty.
Roen didn't chase.
He stayed where he was, feet set where the last step had landed, breathing even. The lane settled around him, the quiet returning in pieces. A loose plank on one of the crates shifted slightly where his foot had clipped it earlier, the corner tapping once against the wood beneath it before going still again. A thin line marked the dirt near his heel where the blade had passed through, shallow but clean.
Roen looked at it for a second, then lifted his gaze back to the wall, holding there.
Nothing moved.
He shifted his weight, feeling the ground, then stepped forward, passing the crates again without touching them this time. His hand trailed along the wall as he moved past the broken section, fingers catching on the rough stone for a moment before slipping free.
The main street came back into view ahead, voices rising again, filling the space before he reached it. Roen stepped into it without breaking stride, the noise folding around him, covering the lane behind as if it had never been there.
He kept walking.
Nothing changed in how he moved, but it stayed with him the distance, the timing, the way it had come in and gone just as clean.
He kept walking. The distance stayed with him.