Power is loud when it rises.
It is quiet when it rearranges itself.
Mira began to feel the rearrangement before she could see it.
The Unified Structural Commission had stabilized after the emergency authority amendment. Public confidence had leveled. The grid crisis had passed. Parliament had stepped back.
On paper, everything looked functional.
Too functional.
And stability, she had learned, is often the prelude to ambition.
It began with small things.
Meeting agendas shifting subtly without her authorization.
Advisory memos circulating before reaching her desk.
A minor vote on fiscal redistribution occurring without her formal signature, justified under "subcommittee autonomy."
Nothing illegal.
Nothing explosive.
But incremental independence.
Integration had dissolved Council and Coalition.
Now former loyalties were reforming into quieter factions.
Daniel noticed first.
"You feel it," he said one evening after a closed session.
"Yes."
"They are reorganizing."
