LYRA'S POV
Three months after Vera's testimony, the restoration work transformed in ways I hadn't anticipated even with forty-one dimensional states theoretically capable of perceiving possibilities that singular consciousness couldn't detect.
The fragments were responding differently.
Not just individually—that variation had always existed, with some consciousness patterns eager for wholeness while others resisted integration despite crystalline stasis creating its own form of suffering. But collectively. Systemically. As if Vera's testimony and the Goddess's explicit protection had created a ripple effect through the fragment population that transcended simple political acknowledgment.
They trusted restoration now. Actually trusted it rather than approaching integration with cautious hope mixed with expectation of betrayal that intervention had conditioned through twelve centuries of systematic elimination disguised as protective restriction.
