CHAPTER 123 — WHEN POWER IS NO LONGER LOUD
Power did not disappear when Elena stepped back.
It changed frequency.
That was the first truth she grasped as the days unfolded—not with drama, not with collapse, but with a steady, undeniable shift. Power no longer announced itself through summons or directives. It no longer traveled through official channels polished by tradition and reinforced by habit.
It moved through consequence.
Quietly.
Relentlessly.
And without asking who once stood at the center.
The absence of noise was not peace. It was exposure. Systems that had relied on momentum now had to justify movement. Decisions that once hid behind consensus now carried names, signatures, and consequence. Elena understood this instinctively, the way one understands gravity not by studying it, but by falling.
