CHAPTER 122 — THE SHAPE OF CONSEQUENCE
The morning did not ask permission.
It arrived sharp and clear, stripped of hesitation, carrying with it the quiet certainty that what had begun could not be undone. Elena felt it before she opened her eyes—the pressure of forward motion, the sense that the world had taken her absence not as a pause, but as instruction.
For the first time in years, nothing reached for her attention the moment consciousness settled in.
No encrypted alerts. No urgent briefings. No silent expectation waiting at the edge of the day.
She lay still for several breaths, not savoring the quiet, but measuring it. Silence had texture now. It had weight. It was no longer empty—it was occupied by decisions being made elsewhere, by people who no longer waited for her name to legitimize their actions.
When she rose, she did so without urgency.
