CHAPTER 115 — THE SILENCE AFTER AUTHORITY
Silence, Elena learned, was never empty.
It carried weight. It pressed inward. It reshaped space. It forced attention toward places noise had once softened or concealed. In the days following her withdrawal, the absence of her voice began to echo louder than any declaration she had ever made, louder even than the collapse that had preceded it.
Meetings stalled.
Decisions slowed.
Committees convened only to adjourn again, unresolved. Proposals circulated without signatures. Authority hovered, undefined, suspended between habit and fear.
And in that stillness, people began to confront an uncomfortable truth.
They had waited for permission far more often than they had ever admitted.
Elena did not move to correct that.
She let the silence stretch.
