“Yes.”
“But later.”
“I was going to wait until you had eaten.”
“And then I claimed you back.”
“And then you claimed me back.”
She watched me for a long moment. “You should’ve told me sooner.”
“Yes.”
I did not qualify it. That mattered to her; I felt the small shift through the bond before I saw it in her face. “I was holding it until I knew you could use it,” I said. “Not receive it. Use it.”
Her hand returned to my chest, steady over my ribs.
“Now you can.”
The decision moved through her before she spoke, sharp and immediate. “We find them. Together.”
“Yes.”
She searched my face for the part I had not said yet. “There’s more. Tell me.”
I kept my hand at her back and made my voice careful. “Solberg’s father will move within forty-eight hours.”
“Martin.”
“Yes.”
“He can’t move on us directly,” she said.
“No.But he can move on his son’s claim.”
The personal heat in her banked so quickly I felt the operative come forward through the bond. “He’ll try to dissolve Rhain’s legal claim.”
“Yes,” I said. “Through council mechanism, through the Norwegian framework, or through whatever interpretation lets him pretend this is procedure instead of intervention.”
She went quiet for a moment, already building the map. Martin. Yuki. Rhain. The council. Norway. Every pressure point with a name attached.
“How would he pull it off?”
“Pressure on Yuki first. Then Rhain. Then political consequence to anyone willing to recognize the dual bond as valid.”
Her eyes stayed on mine. “How long do I have?”
“Forty-eight hours. Possibly seventy-two if Bjorn delays.”
That caught her attention. “Bjorn would delay?”
“He has stayed away when he did not have to,” I said. “More than once.”
“On whose side?”
“Not Martin’s. I do not yet know whether that means he is on Rhain’s.”
She grappled with that in silence, her focus turning inward as the pieces moved. Martin could not attack the bond directly, not without making himself the aggressor. He could attack the legal recognition around it. He could isolate Rhain. He could make delay look like procedure until the bond became easier to separate than defend.
