Adam lies to the Council with the same steady voice he uses when giving orders in the field.
That is how I know immediately.
I am not in the chamber. I am not meant to be. The meeting is closed, sealed, layered with wards meant to block sound and scent and intent. None of that matters. The bond does not care about architecture.
The lie slides through it like a bruise forming in slow motion.
It is subtle. Careful. Almost gentle.
He downplays my influence. Uses measured language. Controlled phrasing. I can feel the shape of the words even without hearing them. Anomaly. Convergence of factors. Unusual, but contained. He calls what happened at the wards an outlier. A reaction amplified by stress and proximity rather than something intrinsic to me.
He does not say it was nothing.
He says
