Chapter 117

Aria's POV

Venn's framework was formally adopted by the coordinator network in May.

Not as mandatory protocol — Sable had proposed the distinction early in the discussion and the network had accepted it immediately. The framework was a resource, not a requirement. A tool for sharpening judgment rather than replacing it. The same caveat Venn had written into the document's preamble, recognized and honored by the people who would use it.

The adoption meeting had one moment I hadn't anticipated.

Brek, who had been running the expanding reading exchange for two years and had developed a coordinator's fluency with resistant territories, asked whether Venn could present the framework...