It wasn’t a crisis.
It wasn’t a threat.
It wasn’t a summons.
It was… absence.
Three months without major recalibration.
Three months without urgent signal anomalies.
Three months where the most disruptive event in my calendar was Ash forgetting his Academy assignment and Ryder declaring Sir Fluffington President of the Western Territories.
And that terrified me.
“You’re scanning again,” Ezra observed as I stood in the estate observatory staring at nothing in particular.
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“No.”
He moved beside me.
The estate grounds were calm.
Trade routes steady.
Court quiet.
Institute functioning.
Resonance embedded into culture.
The nested cluster stable and independent.
No factional uprising.
No metaphysical disturbance.
No e
