CHAPTER 117 — WHAT STANDS WITHOUT SUPPORT
The first visible consequence of autonomy was disorder.
Not chaos—chaos was loud, dramatic, and easy to blame. This was quieter. More unsettling. It arrived as misaligned priorities, overlapping authority, and decisions made too late or too carefully. Structures that had once moved smoothly under borrowed certainty now revealed their uneven foundations.
Elena watched it unfold without interference.
From a distance, the changes looked minor. A postponed resolution here. A retracted statement there. But beneath the surface, something more profound was happening: people were discovering the cost of choice.
Without Elena's presence anchoring outcomes, every decision now carried weight that could not be deflected.
