The moment stretched longer than it should have, thick with something unspoken. Kael didn't move after stepping forward, but he didn't need to.
The street kept flowing around them, boots scraping stone, a cart wheel rattling somewhere, distant laughter from a tavern mouth, but the pocket of air between Kael and the two men went still, like the crowd itself had learned to avoid the shape of trouble.
His mask clung damp to his face. Warmth pooled behind it, sticky and metallic, and every breath dragged that iron taste across his tongue.
He kept his chin level anyway, shoulders settled, stance balanced like he wasn't one cough away from dropping again.
It wasn't bravado. It was habit. If you looked fragile, you became fragile in someone else's head first, and once that happened, you were already half dead.
