I swallowed. “And it only ends when?—?”
“When the time runs out,” he said. “Or when both of you speak the words to break it.”
“Both.”
He nodded. “Everything is mutual here. Always.” It sounded like a lie. Coming here to bring honor to my family didn’t feel like a mutual agreement. In one instant, we had been sinking; in another, a chance too good to be true was given to us. Nobody had asked me whether I would or could go through with it.
We reached the inner wing. My room was just beyond the second arch.
Caedin paused beside the low fountain, setting the scrolls on the ledge carefully, as if they deserved reverence even now.
“I’ve only bonded once,” he said, almost offhand.
That surprised me. “Did it… last?”
He hesitated.
His gaze turned inward, distant. “It was beautiful,” he said. “And complicated.”
I waited. The silence felt like something offered.
“I’m sorry,” I said gently. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“No,” Caedin replied, his voice still soft, “it’s all right. But there are some things—” he glanced at me “—some things that feel wrong to speak aloud. They aren’t secrets. Just… sacred.”
I nodded. I understood that. It was why so little was truly known.
He smiled again. “I think you’ll do well here, Callis.”
I didn’t believe him. But I wanted to.
Caedin bent to collect the scrolls again, but I reached for one and held onto it as we began to walk once more. The warm breeze fluttered the edges of ourserets, the fabric catching little whispers of movement as we passed beneath an arbor.
“Why are you being kind to me?” I asked quietly.
Caedin turned his head, brows raised just slightly. “Because someone was kind to me.”
I waited.
He smiled faintly, as though the memory had teeth and sweetness both. “When I first came here, I worked in the kitchens. Not glamorous, I know. Peeling fruit, washing pots, scrubbing the floors with oil until they shone enough to blind you at sunrise. I kept my head down and listened. It’s what people forget you can do when your hands are busy.”
“You weren’t chosen?” I asked.
“Not right away.” His voice held no bitterness, only memory. “Some are. Some are summoned thenight they arrive. Others take weeks. Or never bond at all.”
I glanced at him. “Did you think they’d forgotten you?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes. Then I realized there’s no order to it. No ladder to climb. They say the gods favor whom they favor. And when the moment comes, it comes.”
I hesitated. “I was told I’d be bonded. That I was being sent to serve the island.”
Caedin nodded, his tone gentler now. “That might be true. But when, and to whom, no one can promise that.”
“But I was summoned.”
“To the island,” he said. “Not to a person. There’s a difference.”
We passed under a carved archway, a fig tree growing just beyond it, its limbs thick with green. The scent of crushed leaves lingered in the warm air.
