Kael didn't authorize a city.
He authorized a street.
That was how he justified it to himself.
A narrow trade artery cutting through the eastern quarter—already half-abandoned, already unstable. If something was going to bend, it might as well be something cracked.
"One corridor," Kael said. "Limited hours. No weapons. No resonance amplification."
The broker from the concourse inclined his head. "Reasonable."
Mira folded her arms. "Temporary."
"Experimental," Kael corrected.
Ashveil observed without comment.
That should've been a warning.
The corridor opened at dusk.
Kael felt it immediately—the subtle loosening at the edge of his field. Not absence. Not collapse.
Allowance.
The world didn't resist. It adjusted, reluctantly, like a tightened muscle being told to relax without fully trusting the instruction.
Stalls appeared quickly. Too quickly.
People moved with practiced efficiency—traders, couriers, masked intermediaries. Not chaos.
Competence.
Rae watched from a rooftop, eyes wide. "They were ready for this."
Kael's jaw tightened. "They expected me to agree."
Mira muttered, "I hate when criminals plan better than governments."
At first, it worked.
Noise returned to the corridor—not screaming noise, but layered sound. Bargains whispered. Footsteps overlapped. Signals passed unnoticed.
Supply moved.
Medicine. Batteries. Data cores.
People who had vanished from the city's order resurfaced cautiously, testing the boundaries.
Kael walked the street once.
No ambush. No distortion.
Just life adapting.
He felt… relieved.
"This is fine," he told himself.
The problem wasn't what happened inside the corridor.
It was what happened around it.
By midnight, Kael noticed pressure building at the edges. Resonance tightened where it bordered the allowance zone, like water against a dam.
Rae's voice came sharp through the comm. "Kael, we've got spillover."
"What kind?"
"Demand. Everyone wants in."
Mira cursed. "Of course they do."
Kael frowned. "I set limits."
"Limits don't reduce pressure," Rae said. "They redirect it."
The first incident happened two blocks away.
A fight—not over goods, but access. Two groups collided at the boundary where order snapped back into place. The sudden shift disoriented them—sound misaligned, movement corrected violently.
One man fell.
Hit his head.
Didn't get back up.
Mira arrived seconds later, kneeling beside the body. She looked up slowly.
"He's dead."
Kael felt the field shudder—not reacting, not resisting.
Accounting.
"I didn't—" he started.
Ashveil interrupted, voice precise.
"You authorized asymmetry."
Kael clenched his fists. "I tried to reduce harm."
"You redistributed it."
By morning, rumors had spread.
The corridor became legend—the only place where the world still breathed freely. People pressed against its boundaries, desperation sharpening into anger.
Wardens arrived.
Not to shut it down.
To monitor.
"You've created a choke point," the Warden from before said grimly. "Everyone who can't adapt to your order will gravitate here."
Kael stared at the street, now lined with people waiting for a chance to enter. "I thought controlled instability would be safer."
The Warden shook his head. "Safety isn't evenly distributed."
The broker returned at dawn.
He surveyed the crowd with satisfaction he didn't bother hiding.
"You see?" he said. "Pressure valves work."
Mira snapped, "Someone died."
"Yes," the broker replied calmly. "One. Instead of dozens elsewhere."
Kael's voice was flat. "That's not your decision to make."
The broker met his gaze. "Neither was opening the corridor. But you made it."
Silence stretched.
Kael finally spoke. "I'm closing it."
The broker's smile faded. "That will cause a surge."
"I know."
"People will get hurt."
"I know."
Ashveil spoke.
"Reversal will concentrate consequence."
Kael nodded. "Then I'll be here when it happens."
He closed the corridor slowly.
Not snapping it shut.
Phasing order back in—incrementally, carefully. The world resisted this time, tension releasing in controlled waves instead of rupture.
It took hours.
There were fights. Shouting. Panic.
But no more deaths.
When it was over, the street looked ordinary again.
Too ordinary.
That night, Kael sat alone.
"I tried to compromise," he said quietly.
Ashveil answered.
"Compromise introduces complexity."
"And?"
"Complexity increases failure modes."
Kael laughed weakly. "That's comforting."
"It is accurate."
He stared at the darkened corridor.
He had wanted to believe order and chaos could share space cleanly.
Now he understood.
Permission didn't remove responsibility.
It multiplied it.
And the next time someone asked for terms, Kael would have to decide not just whether to allow them—
—but whether he was ready to carry the cost.