Peace is never a still surface.
It is a current running beneath stone.
Aurora feels it in the way the air shifts around the council chamber. In the way Covenant elders no longer meet Darius's gaze directly. In the way messages are sent through secondary channels instead of primary seals.
The radicals are broken.
Obsidian is seated.
Sanctuary is steady.
And now
Covenant fractures.
Darius knew it would come.
He warned her.
Power abhors vacuum.
And when he chose structure over dominance, he created one.
The first sign is not public.
It is procedural.
A Covenant subcommittee introduces a motion to "review executive conduct under wartime realignment statutes."
Technical language.
Layered.
Dangerous.
Mara reads the document twice before looking up.
"They're invoking pre-fracture clauses," she says quietly.
"Those were never formally dissolved," Selene adds.
"They were never meant to be used in peacetime," Taron says grimly.
Aurora turns toward Darius.
