Attention, the city discovered, had a shape.
It bent toward what was familiar.
It slid toward what felt safe.
And when unexamined, it gathered around the same voices, the same hours, the same rooms.
Rhen noticed it during a review that felt… off.
Not wrong.
Not rushed.
Just narrow.
The same three people spoke first. The same data sets were referenced. The same districts appeared on the maps.
He waited, counting breaths.
Nymera felt it too—the quiet compression of focus that preceded exclusion.
"We're paying attention," someone said confidently.
Nymera tilted her head. "To what?"
Silence followed.
The realization unsettled them more than any crisis had.
They had learned to interrupt habit.
They had learned to release success.
They had learned to wait and act with care.
But they had not yet learned to move attention.
Skelda frowned as the insight took shape. "We stopped domination. We didn't stop gravity."
Rhen nodded. "Attention pools."
"And whatever it pools around," Nymera added, "becomes reality."
They did not announce a reform.
They changed a chair.
Literally.
At the next assembly, the seating was rearranged—not randomly, but intentionally. Voices that usually spoke late were placed near the center. Those who always spoke first found themselves further out.
Murmurs followed. Confusion. Mild irritation.
Nymera stood and spoke calmly. "Nothing has been taken from you. Only rotated."
A steward bristled. "This feels manipulative."
"Yes," Nymera replied. "So is pretending the room is neutral."
The shift was uncomfortable.
People hesitated before speaking. Others spoke sooner than they were used to. Some stumbled over words they'd never had to say out loud before.
The room felt slower.
But the maps changed.
New stress points appeared.
Overlooked neighborhoods surfaced.
Assumptions cracked.
Rhen felt the judgment inside him recalibrate—not toward different outcomes, but toward a wider field.
The deep observed with quiet interest.
You redistribute perception, it conveyed. This alters decision topology.
Nymera smiled faintly. "We're changing what's visible."
Visibility increases conflict.
"Yes," Rhen said. "And prevents erasure."
A pause.
Erasure optimizes coherence.
Nymera's voice was firm. "We don't optimize coherence at the cost of people."
The practice spread.
Meeting times rotated to accommodate night workers. Data summaries were presented first by those who gathered it, not those who approved it. Silence was treated as information, not absence.
The city grew noisier.
And fairer.
The backlash came quietly.
A group of senior contributors—respected, weary—requested a private meeting.
"We feel sidelined," their spokesperson said. "After years of carrying this work."
Nymera listened carefully. "You carried it when others couldn't," she said. "Now others can."
"That doesn't make it easier," the spokesperson replied.
"No," Nymera agreed. "It makes it shared."
Rhen added gently, "We're not asking you to leave. We're asking you to look outward."
The meeting ended without resolution.
But it ended without fracture.
That night, Nymera stood alone at the unbuilt space, watching the water reflect a sky crowded with stars. Attention drifted, as it always did—but she noticed where it went, and where it didn't.
Rhen joined her quietly. "This one's harder."
"Yes," she said. "Because it asks us to give up being central."
He nodded. "Even when we're kind."
"Especially then," she replied.
The deep spoke one last time that evening.
You alter salience, it conveyed. This destabilizes hierarchy.
Nymera smiled. "That's the point."
Hierarchy simplifies response.
"And complicates justice," Rhen said.
A pause.
We continue to learn.
The city did not perfect attention.
It practiced it.
People forgot.
They corrected.
They forgot again.
But now, forgetting left a trace—a tension that could be felt and named.
Attention had a shape.
And the city had learned to touch its edges.