The arrow hit the stone two inches from Celestia's leading foot.
She stopped.
Her hand was at her sword before the sound of impact finished — the specific pre-conscious response of a body that had been trained to stop thinking between the trigger and the draw — and behind her she heard the simultaneous 'shing' of six Ktorian blades clearing their scabbards.
The arrow stood upright in the cobblestone, quivering. Black-fletched. The kind of fletching that was standard for the crown's hunter units, the specific military-grade cut that didn't exist in frontier towns.
Celestia did not look at the arrow.
She looked at the street.
