The territory did not celebrate the refusals.
It absorbed them.
Aurelia felt the change over the next two days not as disruption, but as absence—the subtle gaps left behind when expected responses never arrived. Patrols hesitated at decision points where orders would once have been issued. Healers delayed triage until consent was given instead of assumed. Elders spoke less, watching more.
Authority did not vanish.
It thinned.
And thinning carried a price.
"You're quieter," Mira observed as they walked the eastern paths at dusk.
Aurelia nodded. "So is the bond."
That was the unsettling part.
The covenant beneath her skin had not grown louder with spread. It had grown precise. Narrower. Focused inward instead of outward, like a blade drawn carefully from its sheath rather than swung freely.
It no longer reacted to everything.
Only to what mattered.
"That's not necessarily bad," Mira said, though her tone lacked certainty.
"No," Aurelia agreed. "But it's deliberate."
