The first thing Aurelia noticed was how fast certainty vanished once no one fed it.
It didn’t explode.
It didn’t collapse.
It hesitated.
Across regions once dominated by rigid protocol, small inconsistencies began to appear not errors, but pauses. Orders delayed while someone asked a second question. Procedures followed halfway before being quietly set aside. Authority that once moved like a blade now moved like a hand unsure whether it should close into a fist.
The Assembly was blinking.
Aurelia read the reports in sequence, not because she needed to, but because pattern recognition had become a habit she actively resisted. Kane sat nearby, sharpening a blade he rarely used these days, more for grounding than readiness.
“They’re fracturing internally,” he said, eyes on the whetston
