Aurora's POV
By midday, the message was impossible to ignore.
I was not being ignored.
I was being included.
Included in a system that no longer required my initiation.
Included as context.
As precedent.
As justification.
Never as pivot.
I sat alone in the smaller chamber afterward, the one I used to favor when decisions felt heavy enough to require silence. The stone walls were cool, familiar. The crescent beneath my skin was steady, neither burning nor dormant.
It did not offer me urgency.
It did not offer me comfort.
It waited.
They had learned restraint from me.
And then they learned how to work around it.
That was the cost I had not fully accounted for.
Restraint buys time.
But time teaches systems how to survive without you.
A clerk entered quietly. Young. Respectful. Efficient.
"There's been an update," she said.
I did not look up. "From whom?"
"The Transparency Council."
Of course.
I took the document.
