Chapter 9: The Illusion of Distance

The Concord had always believed in distance.

Distance was doctrine.
Distance was safety.

Distance was the quiet confidence that if something burned far enough away, it would not ignite the whole.

That belief shattered in a chamber of glass and light.

The High Council Hall was not built for panic. Its architecture discouraged it—curved surfaces softened confrontation, harmonic light fields regulated emotional spikes, gravity gradients subtly dampened aggressive posture. For ten thousand cycles, it had worked.

Now, it failed.

At the center of the chamber, a projection hovered: a star map layered with translucent waves of distortion. Not violent. Not catastrophic.

Expanding.

“It is impossible,” said Councillor Yethrin of the Aural Compact, their voice resonating through layered throats. “The phenomenon was localized. Confined to Sol-space.”

Althara, Speaker of the Concord, did not answer immediately.

Her crystalline facets refracted the projection into prismatic shards—each one a neighboring system now reporting the same anomalies: sensor ghosts, temporal echoes, navigation uncertainty.

Not devastation. Spread.

“It is responding,” Althara said at last.

A murmur rippled through the chamber.

“Responding implies intent,” hissed Councillor Vrax of the Dominion of Scale. “We do not attribute agency to phenomena.”