AISLYNI do not take power.

It settles on me.

At first, it comes in fragments, small, almost imperceptible shifts that only someone paying attention would notice. A pause before a decision. A glance in my direction when voices disagree. A messenger hesitating at the threshold of Elliot’s quarters before turning, almost instinctively, toward mine.

By the second day, it is no longer subtle.

The pack begins to move around me the way iron filings move toward a magnet. Quietly. Inevitably.

I wake ...