“You had proximity,” Vidar said. “You had access. And you had motive.”
Sera went very still. “Motive.”
Alaric sensed the shift the moment the word left Vidar’s mouth.
“Yes,” Vidar continued. “You were brought closer to the core. Given trust most people don’t earn in a decade. And then you slept with him.”
Sera flinched.
It was small. Almost imperceptible. But it was there.
Alaric fought not to react. The urge to shut Vidar down completely burned sharp and immediate, ahot surge of fury he locked behind bone and discipline. Vidar had crossed a line, not with the accusation itself, but with the casual certainty of it. Alaric filed the moment away with cold vigilance. There would be a reckoning later, in private, when witnesses were gone and words could be chosenmore carefully.
“That’s irrelevant,” he said flatly.
“It’s the opposite of irrelevant,” Vidar replied, turning on Sera. “Access. Timing. Intimacy. You positioned yourself perfectly.”
She turned back to Alaric, disbelief and something raw flashing across her face. “You told him.”
Alaric didn’t answer.Because Vidar was right about one thing. Timing mattered.The morning after.The access expansion.The file.Cold logic didn’t care about coincidence.
“You think I slept with you to manipulate you,” she said quietly.The words hit harder than accusation.
Something fractured behind Alaric’s ribs, sharp and sudden, like bone giving way under too much pressure. For a single, treacherous heartbeat, the night they’d shared flared between them—heat, trust, the unguarded way she had looked at him when she thought nothing else mattered.
The question he’d been refusing to ask snapped into focus then, merciless and intimate. Had it been real, or had it been preparation? He buried the thought with ruthless efficiency, grinding it down before it could reach his face or his voice. Whatever he felt was irrelevant. Whatever it had been nolonger mattered.
He forced himself back into the only position that kept everyone alive. “I think the evidence points to you,” hesaid.
Her breath stuttered. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one that matters.”
She shook her head once, asharp, disbelieving motion. “I trusted you.”
The admission burned.He had trusted her too. That was the problem.
“You don’t get to talk about trust,” Vidar cut in. “Not after this.”
Sera ignored him. Her eyes never left Alaric’s. “If you believe I did this,” she said, voice tight, “then you never knew me at all.”
Anger flared. Remote. Dangerous.”Enough,” Alaric said.He stepped closer. Close enough that she could feel the tension rolling off him.Alaric extended his hand, palm up. “The tablet.”
After a brief hesitation, she placed the tablet into his hand. As her fingers brushed his skin, he saw it—the lightning-bolt Brand stark against her palm.Her breath caught. She realized what he was seeing at the same moment he did. She closed her hand reflexively, toolate to hideit.
Alaric’s fingers closed around her wrist before he was fully aware of the motion. Not hard. Not restraining. Acompulsive arrest, as though stopping her hand might stop the cascade of meaning rushing through him. The world narrowed to that single mark, the echo of his own Brand burning in response, recognition answering recognition.
Understanding detonated, violent and absolute.
There was no scenario in which this was coincidence. No manipulation clever enough to fake it. The Brand did not respond to strategy or foresight. It answered only truth.
He released her abruptly and turned away, forcing his voice into command. “Vidar. Leave.”
Vidar blinked. “What?”
“Now.”
For a fraction of a second, Vidar looked like he might argue. Then something unreadable passed through his dark eyes and he smiled. Slow. Polite. Calculating. “Interesting,” he murmured, and walked out without protest.
