The image that hit me during the gala blackout—sea cliffs, watchtowers, command—flashes in my head when he says mark. Bond. Claim. Even surrounded by carved faces, the bond is private weather in my skull: winter on a cliff, a narrow road, a pack answering a single call. Not my memory. Not mine. I want to scream.
He takes my hand. His palm is warm. The contact is small, private, and suddenly too much.
"You felt it," he says.
I would have called anyone else a liar. I call myself something harsher. "I felt something. You pressed your seal into my glove. You're a noble. All of that—beautiful. The rest is myth."
His fingers tighten. "It's not myth for my people. The bond is natural. It chooses. It ties. It changes political reality."
"Then explain the politics." My CEO voice finds the room; it feels out of place, but it's a tool I never leave at home.
He studies me, a small, interested tilt of head. "There is a prophecy. It speaks of a union between blood and craft. A pairing that can either stabilize lines—or burn them. Your technology can bridge our wards to the city's infrastructure. In the right hands, that protects enclaves. In the wrong hands, it opens them."
So that's it. My code, my years baiting venture capital and defending patents, becomes a key—or a siege engine. The thought should make me furious. Instead I feel cold and naked.
"Why tell me now?" I ask.
"Because you were marked in public," he says. "Because enemies will see that seal and imagine its uses. Because the moment people link your firm to our courts, regulators and rivals will hunt for hooks."
He's not wrong. The doctored photo from last night—staged to look intimate—has already sparked whispers. An investor memo with half-truths can sink market cap. If someone can tie my company to a noble house, insinuation becomes leverage.
"You say 'prophecy' like it absolves people who use it," I say. "People use prophecies to justify murder."
His expression flattens. "Then let me be blunt. There are those in my court who would weaponize you. If your systems fallto a faction aligned with my rival, they can map and unmask our sanctuaries. They can broadcast our wards. They can?—"
My throat tightens on the list. I built defenses to keep others from owning me. Defenses mean nothing if they can turn shelter into exposure.
"You want me to limit access to my tech," I say. "To sign agreements that freeze certain features. To curtail partnerships. To lock my product from the market."
"I want you alive and in charge of your company," he says. "And I want the courts to be able to respond to existential threats. There is a balance?—"
"Balance is a word for people with two hands free," I snap. "My board won't accept soft compromises. They want clean numbers, not folklore."
He watches me for a fissure. The mate-bond thrums—a pulse of cedar and salt, an image at the ribs of a child on a lap, a throne room, a ledger burned and a new name written over ash. Ambitions rise that are not mine.
"You signed the MOI," he says quietly. "You did it to hold the floor. That gave me a foot in the door. But a foot is not a pact."
"If you're leading me toward a pact, say so." I refuse to blink.
"I am—suggesting—frameworks. An oversight consortium. A charter. Transparency wrapped in binding penalties. Your shareholders keep authority. My court agrees to non-interference and to seal certain clauses. A public charter. A private oath." He leans forward. "We make a model other houses can reference. We make you unexploitable."
"A lot of words for someone who pressed an antique seal into my glove without consent," I say.
He flinches as if I have hurt him, then smiles—one that costs him. "I took a risk. I couldn't test the bond any other way. I needed to know if you were what the lineage described. I accept the consequences."
"You made the consequences my problem."
He gestures, small and apologetic. "I know your history. Scarcity taught you to build walls. I do not want to be someone who makes your world smaller."
But his hand doesn't leave mine. The contact steadies a place in me that thinks in clauses. The bond answers with the memory of a hand that commanded a pack. The image calms me in a way that makes me ashamed.
An elder presses a palm to his chest, then mine. The air shifts like weather behind a door. "There is more," the elder says. "Rivals will seek to weaponize the fusion. They will hunt legal and ritual tools. Whoever controls the bridge controls sanctuary."
"Who are these rivals?" I ask.
The elder's eyes narrow. "A cousin who hungers. A financier who profits from chaos. The old grudge in the River House. All will line up. You must be prepared."
The list is depressingly familiar: raiders in tailored suits, people who profit from wreckage. Here they acquire faces I don't see. The strategy is mine—defensive, procedural, legal.
