CHAPTER 91: CHESS
Selene's POV
The counter-move took three hours to design.
Not because it was complicated — the most effective political moves rarely were. It took three hours because we had to be precise about what we showed and what we kept back, and precision at this level of consequence required the kind of slowness that felt wrong when hours were the unit we were working in.
Damon and I sat at the tactical table with Ronan and Felix, the network map spread between us, the Chair's office communication face up at the edge of the table where it could be referenced without becoming the only thing in the room.
"He's going to move before the five days are up," Damon said. "Not after. If he waits for formal Council proceedings to begin, Aldis is publicly compromised and the territorial claim is on record and enforced. Every day he waits after today is a day the encirclement loses coherence."
"So he moves in the next forty-eight hours," Ronan said.
