Page 29 of The Bear Between Us

22

KAEDRIC

She's pulling back.

I notice it the way I notice most things about her now, immediately and without being able to not notice it. The difference is subtle enough that someone without my specific and involuntary attentiveness to her wouldn't catch it. She still comes to training. She still sits in on the strategy sessions. She still talks to Maris for hours in the workroom with the door half open. But the quality of her presence has changed, there's a layer of distance in it that wasn't there last week, and the mate bond, which has been a steady warm signal since the night of the patrol ambush, is registering something muffled and turned inward.

She's processing something she hasn't decided to share.

I know what it is. The journals. She came back from that workroom four nights ago with something new in her expression and she's been carrying it since, and whatever she found in those pages goes further than the bloodline connection and the ley line mapping she told me about. I've been waiting for her to bring it to me. She hasn't.

I don't push it. I told her when you're ready and I meant it. But the waiting has a texture to it now, the specific discomfort of knowing a gap exists and not knowing its shape.

Brennan puts a new intelligence summary on the operations table after breakfast. He walks me through it with the focused neutrality he uses when he's delivering information he expects me to find difficult.

"Post-attack surveillance assessment," he says. "Based on the breach points, the timing, and the specific sections they hit, we've identified three probable observation positions outside the territory boundary. All three have clear sightlines to the main building and two have coverage of the primary training field."

I look at the map. The observation positions form a loose arc on the northern and eastern approaches. Patient, well chosen, the kind of placement that requires time and knowledge of the terrain.

"How long have they been there."

"Conservative estimate, two weeks. Possibly longer." He pauses. "They have been watching the training field, Kaedric. They've seen everything we've been doing out there."

Everything we've been doing out there includes six days of Elowen working with her magic at increasing scale, the ward work, the survival drills, the scouting run. They have a detailed picture of her capabilities and her patterns.

"Pull the training field operations inside or to the interior compound," I say. "Effective immediately. And I want the observation positions monitored, don't clear them yet, I want to know if they're getting fresh information or working from what they already have."

Brennan nods. Then, waiting for the right moment: "I want to revisit the oversight parameters for Ms. Briar."

"Brennan."

"The attack confirmed she's the primary target and they now have a detailed intelligence picture of her capabilities. The calculus has changed." He holds my gaze. "Stricter boundary on her independent movement. Escort for all ward work, all training, any activity outside the main building. No exceptions."

It's the most structured case he's made for it. The frustrating thing is that tactically he's not wrong.

"I'll increase the escort parameters," I say. "Full accompaniment for all external activity. But she stays integrated in the strategy sessions and the training continues."

"And her independent early morning sessions."

I go still. "What sessions."

Brennan's expression doesn't change. "She's been going out before dawn. Forty minutes, sometimes an hour, working the ward line on the northern boundary beyond what Maris has her scheduled for. The overnight rotation has been logging it." He pauses. "She hasn't mentioned it to you."

No. She hasn't.

I find her in the workroom with Maris after lunch and I ask Maris to give us a few minutes, which Maris does. Elowen watches Maris leave and then looks at me.

"The early morning sessions," I say.

"I'm within the boundary."

"You're working beyond your cleared parameters without informing anyone."

"I'm not a trainee who needs clearance to practice magic." The distance I've been feeling from her sharpens into something more present. "I'm a practitioner working with my own mark on my own terms."

"In a territory under active surveillance by people who are specifically tracking your magical output."

"I know that."