Control does not announce when it fails.
It erodes.
It does not collapse with spectacle or scream its defeat into the air. It erodes quietly, like stone worn smooth by water that was never meant to cut.
It slips between assumptions. Between permissions granted once and never revoked. Between the moment a man believes himself omniscient and the moment he stops asking what he cannot see.
Aria understood this now.
She moved through the estate with a composure of a woman at peace, and that, more than any resistance, unsettled the system.
Dante noticed it first in the data.
Her biometrics were steady.
Heart rate normalized.
Cortisol levels declining.
Sleep patterns consistent.
No spikes.
No flags.
Compliance read as wellness.
Her steps were unhurried. Her expressions neutral. Her breathing even. She did not resist. She did not rebel. She did not perform the kind of fear Dante's architecture was designed to anticipate.
