Consent Without Truth: A Slow-Burn MM Political Fantasy of Power and Protection

di Lucian Reef (Autore)

Lucian Reef, 2025

Protection is rarely announced as control. It arrives instead through doors that close a little more quietly than expected, through routes adjusted for efficiency, through hands that hover just close enough to intervene before danger has time to name itself. It speaks in language polished by reason, wrapped in assurances, supported by signatures and procedures that promise safety without ever asking what safety will cost. This is a world where protection is not an act of violence, but a system—precise, logical, and designed to function even when no one is watching. Decisions are made collectively, responsibility distributed so evenly that it becomes impossible to locate. Consent is recorded, referenced, and reused long after the moment it was given has passed. Silence is interpreted as agreement, and agreement hardens into precedent. At the center of this machinery are those who do not raise their voices. A prince who learns that being reasonable is often indistinguishable from being complicit, whose words carry weight long after he has stopped speaking, and whose understanding arrives too late to function as refusal. A protector bound by oath and protocol, whose body responds before thought, whose professionalism requires him not to ask certain questions, and whose obedience becomes so seamless it no longer waits for command. Around them, a council that calculates mercy in numbers, that replaces moral language with technical clarity, and that insists—convincingly—that what it does is necessary. No one here believes they are doing wrong. The harm does not appear as spectacle. It unfolds through routine. Through reports filed and archived. Through rooms where the air feels normal even as something irreversible takes place just beyond the edge of attention. Violence is delayed, deferred, justified, and finally rendered invisible by repetition. What remains is not innocence lost, but innocence rendered irrelevant. This is not a story of rebellion or redemption. It does not offer release through confession or salvation through love. Closeness is dangerous rather than comforting. Care tightens rather than soothes. Knowledge does not stop the machine, and understanding does not grant the power to undo what has already been set in motion. By the time the cost is named, it already has a history, a face, and a place in the record. This novel asks what remains when every choice has been reasonable, every step defensible, and every outcome explainable. It sits inside the moments where silence does the most work, where restraint becomes habit, and where survival no longer requires justification. It is a story about systems that succeed, about protection that functions exactly as designed, and about the people who continue to breathe inside it. This book does not end with resolution. It ends with continuation—because systems like these do not collapse when they are understood. They persist. They refine. And they wait for the next necessary decision.

• Autore: Lucian Reef
• Anno edizione: 2025
• Editore: Lucian Reef
• Formato: EPUB2 con DRMFREE
• Lingua: Inglese
• Compatibilità: Tutti i dispositivi (eccetto Kindle)
• Layout: Reflowable
• EAN: 9798232879884