Chapter 86

Aria's POV

Winter arrived the way Kira had predicted.

Things finished. Then rested.

The alliance work didn't stop — it never entirely stopped — but it settled into a different register. Slower correspondence. Longer gaps between coordinator calls. The schools themselves continued their terms, but the external work of building and expanding and negotiating paused in the natural way of a season that discouraged travel and encouraged consolidation.

I used the time to read.

Not curriculum documents or governance frameworks or compact drafts. The Central confederation had begun transmitting their accumulated knowledge materials as part of the compact's first practical exchange, and the first package had arrived —...