The night after Elias Morven's fall was quiet.
Too quiet.
Dreyden noticed it immediately.
The Triangle usually breathed at night—footsteps in distant corridors, mana signatures flaring briefly in training rooms, whispers carried through half-shut doors. Even silence here was rarely complete.
Tonight felt… contained.
He lay awake on his bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling, listening.
Nothing.
No alert notifications.
No sudden summons.
No anxious knock at his door.
Oversight had accepted the outcome.
That was the part that unsettled him.
The Triangle didn't care about justice. It cared about stability. Elias had become unstable—unreliable data, fractured alliances, inefficient outcomes. Removing him from relevance wasn't cruelty.
It was maintenance.
Dreyden turned slightly on the mattress, exhaling slowly.
He tried to feel something.
Satisfaction.
Relief.
Even discomfort.
There was nothing.
Just a clean, hollow calm.
That scared him more than guilt ever could have.
