“Yes.”
“Under direct council oversight for the foreseeable duration.”
“I will comply.”
The silence that followed was not empty.
“You don’t regret it,” she said. Not a question.
The statement contained the dining hall. The kiss. The wordmine. The bite. The strike she had almost landed. The blood at her throat. The line I had opened between us without consent. The rival-clan precedent. The war not yet declared, but already being calculated in three foreign capitals.
“No,” I said.
She nodded, as if I had confirmed something she already knew. “That’s the answer I expected.”
“It is the truth.”
“I know.”
She pulled a different document toward her. The formal reassignment order had already been drafted.
“As of eight o’clock Saturday morning, your escort designation is no longer diplomatic,” Yuki said.
I did not move.
“It’s protective. Claimed-party protocol. You’ll be present everywhere she’s questioned and outside every door she sleeps behind, and you won’t enter her quarters without her invitation or council instruction.”
Escort of record. Protocol shadow. Contact point for every council deliberation involving the claim. I dipped my chin in acknowledgement.
“Solberg’s clan will request joint custody. The council will deliberate. In the interim, you’re her protection.”
Yuki let the reassignment order sit between us.
“You won’t push her further.” Her words didn’t rise in volume. They didn’t need to.
“I am not going to push her.”
“You took something from her in the dining hall,” she said. “She’s going to spend days deciding what to do with that.”
The phrasing was precise.
Not deciding what to do withme.
With what I did.
“She may choose to kill you, to use you, or to do something neither of us has seen before, which, given the evening, would be consistent,” Yuki said. “You won’t interfere with that decision or push toward the outcome you prefer. You’ll give space.”
I dipped my head again.
“You won’t attempt to apologize.”
My jaw set. Yuki waited until I had control of myself.
“An apology before she has chosen what happened to her means asking her to manage your remorse. You would be putting another burden in her hands and calling it respect.”
She continued, “And you will not try to demonstrate the bond’s depth. She already feels enough, and she doesn’t need you turning that into proof. The bond will do its own work without your assistance.”
I held still.
