Page 23 of Golden Bond


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Here, there were no whispers. Just silk and sun and the ease of touch.

The attendants finished rinsing me with final care, then stepped away. One held out a large drying cloth. I stood, water sheeting down my skin, and let them blot it away. Not a single stroke was rushed.

Then came the oil.

It smelled faintly of amber and orange blossom. One warmed it in his hands, then smoothed it across my arms and shoulders, down my back, across my chest. The oil soaked into my skin and left it luminous. My breath slowed. The room no longer felt hot, just quiet.

By the time they stepped away, I barely recognized myself.

I was no longer a scribe’s apprentice. No longer a boy running from shame. I was clean. Soft-skinned and sun-touched, standing in the heat-glow of sacred stone.

Beautiful.

That was the word that came, uninvited, and I didn’t dismiss it.

But still, the tightness lingered in my chest.

Because I didn’t know who waited for me beyond those doors. I didn’t know what would be asked of me. I didn’t know if I was ready.

And so I closed my eyes.

And I pictured Caedin.

The way his lashes curved when he smiled, the gentle curl of his voice, the way he never rushed, never pushed, just left space for me to step into. He had been kind. He had looked at me like I mattered. And if I had to be touched—if I had to be taken—I wanted it to be by someone who would hold me the way he spoke to me. Carefully.

I didn’t think I’d be that lucky.

But it gave me something to hold on to.

A single shape in the fog.

A breath before the ritual began.

The silks they dressed me in shimmered like flame.

Pale gold at first glance, but shifting with motion, threaded with something finer than I had ever seen. The fabric caught the lanternlight and scattered it like dust over water. The attendants moved without instruction, lifting my arms, draping the folds, and fastening the wrap across my chest. The seams were lined with gold. Not embroidered. Woven in.

When they stepped back, they studied me in silence, then bowed lightly and gestured for me to follow.

My feet were bare. The floor beneath was warm, smoothed by centuries of passage. I walked softly between the two attendants, my silks whispering around my legs with each step, heart tightening in slow coils.

The corridor deepened, arched and veiled in shadow, moonstones glowed like breath of gods. Ithought of the boy I had seen in the Temple days before, splayed out on the polished stone, his limbs loose and glazed with sweat. The way his body had yielded.

My chest ached. Not with pain. With anticipation. Dread. A fear that had no name but many forms.

Then we reached the doors.

They were enormous—solid wood carved with intertwining vines and celestial symbols, their surface worn smooth from countless hands. The attendants stepped aside without a word.

I stood alone.

The doors opened with a low sound, like thunder underwater.

And I stepped into the chamber.

It was round, high-vaulted, and silent but for the low murmurs of movement. The ceiling vanished into shadow above. Lamps were set in golden sconces, their moonlit glows low and steady. The air was warm, perfumed faintly with myrrh and rose.

Young priests lined the outer edge of the space. They wore pale robes, their hair adorned with thin gold cords, their hands folded in front of them. Beside them stood attendants—youths perhaps only a few years older than I—silent, calm, expectant.