Chapter 40: My Ice Queen Needs Mana Recalibration And She Found Out What That Actually Means?!

Selah was standing in their room with her arms crossed when he got back.

The frost on her knuckles was white, not the blue-green, which meant she was running cold on purpose.

"I’m not stupid, Soren."

He closed the door. "I never said you were."

"The recalibration with Yara wasn’t just a combat event."

Soren stood by the door and waited because this was going to play out, however Selah wanted it to play out, and getting ahead of her was a bad idea when the temperature in the room was already dropping.

"The displaced furniture," Selah said.

"The six-hour lockdown. The fact that Yara looks at you now with that face she makes, the one where she’s calm and Yara is never calm, she is a possessive disaster who once tried to eat a student who bumped your shoulder in the cafeteria!"

"She didn’t try to eat him."

"She opened her mouth and showed teeth, that’s close enough!"

"...You slept with her."

Soren didn’t flinch and he didn’t look away because looking away would have been worse.

"Recalibration requires sustained physical contact," he said. "Minimum distance zero."

"Minimum distance zero? You’re using system language to tell me you fucked a wolf!"

"Our wolf and yes."

The frost climbed to her shoulders.

She wasn’t angry about the act.

Soren could see that in the way her eyes stayed on his face, she was angry about the order.

"Why her first?"

"The system chose the highest-index bond and Yara was at 55."

"And I was at what?"

"Forty-three."

Selah’s jaw worked for a second. "Twelve points? That’s the gap between first and second."

"It’s not a ranking, Selah."

"Everything is a ranking, I’m in fucking Class Z, I know how rankings work!" She pulled her arms tighter against her body.

"She got to touch you first because she wanted you more. The system counted it, the system decided."

Through the bond, Yara’s voice, very quiet: She’s right, I hate that she’s right but she is.

Soren kept that to himself.

"There’s a bigger problem than the order," he said.

"I’m aware."

"The auditor is scanning you tomorrow. Your bond readings are still running on the old F-rank frequency. The recalibration with Yara only aligned her signature with Grimm’s. You’re unmasked."

"I’ve known since that woman walked into the building with her scanners." Selah’s frost stopped spreading.

"If she runs a classification scan on me, she gets the raw data. The ice-elemental readings that don’t match my registered beast type."

A notification dropped into his vision.

[DING! — Bond misalignment critical: Selah Young. E-rank scaling blocked. Recalibration required within 12 hours or external scan will expose F-rank anomaly data.]

Followed immediately by a second one.

[DING! — Obsession Index: Selah Young 43/50 → E-rank scaling pending recalibration.]

The auditor’s scan was scheduled for the first thing tomorrow.

"The system just told you the same thing it told me," Selah said, watching his eyes track the notifications.

"You can see my feed?"

"I can feel the bond pulse when a notification fires. I’ve been counting the pulses." She uncrossed her arms for the first time since he’d walked in.

"Twelve hours for recalibration. Same parameters as Yara."

"Same parameters."

"Six hours minimum?"

"Yes."

"Minimum distance zero?"

"Yes."

"Mutual vulnerability?"

"Selah..."

"I’m processing." She held up one hand, palm out, frost coating her fingers. "Give me ten seconds."

Soren gave her ten seconds.

At eight seconds she dropped her hand.

"Fine, but I’m not doing this because the system told me to. I’m doing this because if that auditor sees my readings tomorrow, we all die, everyone the Bureau’s been protecting goes down."

"You could also just say you want to."

She didn’t answer that but she didn’t leave either, and that was an answer.

"Where?" she said.

"The reinforced room, the same one Troy set up for Yara’s recalibration. The wards are still active."

"Who’s on the door?"

"Hansel."

"Maren?"

"Maren knows the order. I explained it to everyone before Yara’s turn."

Selah looked at the door then back at him.

"Have you eaten?"

"What?"

"In the last twelve hours. Have you eaten anything? Because you did a six-hour bond recalibration with her and then you sat through a Council audit and you look like you’re running on spite."

She was right, his last meal had been sometime before the recalibration with Yara, which meant it had been closer to eighteen hours.

"I’ll eat on the way."

"You’ll eat before we start. I’m not recalibrating with someone who’s about to pass out from low blood sugar."

She walked past him, opened the door, and looked back.

"Get food, then meet me in the room in thirty minutes."

Then walked out.

Grimm pushed her head against Soren’s hand from beside the bed.

She’s scared, Grimm said through the bond.

"I know."

Not of you, of what she’s going to feel after.

Tell the ice girl I’ll keep watch from the shadows. Nothing gets near that room.

"You’re being generous."

I went first so I can afford to be generous. Also if the auditor exposes her data, it exposes mine.

"Fair point."

Soren grabbed his jacket from the chair, checked the Fracture timer in his vision, four days, three hours, and walked to the door.

On his way to the cafeteria, he passed Maren coming the other direction.

She was carrying a bowl of something hot and her face went red when she saw his face.

"Selah’s turn?" she said.

"Selah’s turn."

Maren held the bowl out. "Rice and something. I don’t know what something is but it’s not bad."

He took the bowl. "Thanks."

She held his stare for a second, then nodded. "Eat fast. Your ice queen doesn’t like waiting."

She walked past him and turned the corner.

Soren ate standing in the hallway because thirty minutes was thirty minutes and Selah meant what she said.

He finished, left the bowl on a windowsill, and walked to the reinforced room on the fourth floor.

Selah was already there.

She was standing outside the door with her back to the wall, arms at her sides, the blue-green frost coating her hands all the way to the wrist.

Selah looked at him. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

She opened the door and stopped at the threshold.

The room was dark inside.

The containment wards Troy had set glowed faintly along the walls, pale gold lines traced in patterns meant to hold energy in, not keep it out.

Selah looked at the dark for two full seconds.

She stepped in.

The temperature dropped the second she crossed the threshold, the kind of cold that came from Selah letting her suppression slip by a fraction.

Her body reading the room as safe enough to stop holding everything back.

Soren’s breath misted in front of his face.

He followed her in.

"You don’t have to say anything," Selah said from somewhere close. "I already know what this costs you."

"It doesn’t cost me anything."

"Don’t lie to make this easier for me. I don’t need that."

She was right.

He stayed quiet letting his eyes adjust to the dark, and after a few seconds he could see her outline, the faint cold-light coming off her skin where the frost had climbed to her collarbone.

She was looking at him.

"Come here," Selah said before to kiss him.