External POV
The southern routes had shifted overnight.
Not dramatically. Not in ways that triggered alarms. Just enough to redirect movement patterns. Patrols reassigned with language like efficiency and coverage optimization. Rotations smoothed. Overlaps removed.
No single order carried a signature.
No directive traced back to a central authority.
But the routes Thomas normally shared had been reassigned two days earlier.
He had been alone longer than usual.
That detail sat quietly in the margins of the report.
Unnoticed.
Unremarked.
The people who did notice it didn't say anything.
Catherine did not attend the council session.
She didn't need to.
Her influence was already present in the phrasing of recommendations, in the logic of urgency, in the way responsibility was redistributed without appearing to be seized.
Necessity was a powerful author.
It wrote policies quickly.
And it erased attribution even faster.
By nightfall, a second narrative began circulating.
