I turn back to my work, but I feel him move closer, the shift in air pressure subtle but present, the faint scent of something clean and metallic cutting through the damp earth and greenery.
A guard calls out from across the path. “Sir.”
Verr does not turn immediately. “What.”
“Section four rotation delayed by?—”
The guard doesn’t finish, because Verr moves, and the motion is fast enough that it almost escapes notice, a change in position that resolves with him suddenly standing in front of the guard, close enough that the man has to tilt his head back to maintain eye contact.
“Delayed by what,” Verr says.
“By—two minutes, sir.”
Two minutes.
The silence that follows stretches thin.
“Why.”
The guard swallows, audibly. “I assessed?—”
That is as far as he gets.
The strike is controlled, precise, delivered with just enough force to send him sideways into the stone path, shoulder hitting first, then hip, the breath driven from him in a sharp, involuntary sound.
Everything in the garden tightens.
I don’t move.
Verr stands over him without visible exertion, his posture unchanged, his breathing steady.
“You were not asked to assess,” he says.
The guard pushes himself onto one elbow, coughing. “No, sir.”
“You were given a directive.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you hesitated.”
The guard nods, because there is nothing else to do. “Yes, sir.”
Verr watches him for a second longer, then steps back, not escalating, not lingering.
“Correct it.”
“Yes, sir.”
The guard rises more carefully this time and moves to comply. No one helps him. No one speaks. The garden exhales—not relief, but adjustment.
I look down at my hands. They are still steady, and that unsettles me more than anything else, because I’m not surprised, because I’m beginning to understand the pattern.
He doesn’t explode.
He calibrates.
Violence, applied exactly where needed, then stopped before it becomes waste.
