Aurora POV
I thought of every moment I had chosen not to intervene. Every correction I had deferred. Every harm I had allowed to remain theoretical because acting would have felt even premature.
The world had not stayed theoretical.
It had learned.
And now, standing on the edge of a choice I could not take back, I understood something with devastating clarity:
Restraint does not disappear when it stops working.
It becomes someone else's leverage.
The crescent beneath my skin did not burn.
The bond between me and the mountain had always been described as power.
That description had never felt accurate.
Power implies domination. Command. Control.
This was closer to recognition.
The mountain did not ask what I intended to do. It did not demand justification. It did not recoil from the weight of consequence I was about to unleash.
It simply adjusted - the way an ancient body shifts when it realizes the pattern it has been following is no longer survivable.
