The first time I bonded, I was eighteen.
The second, barely twenty.
The third was last summer, and that one nearly broke me.
A failed bond doesn’t dissolve with ceremony. It rots. Quietly. Itches somewhere beneath the ribs where no salve can reach. Turns affection to ache, touch to poison. In time, it feels like a wound that refuses to close. You stop sleeping. You stop breathing properly. Your body remains whole, but something inside you buckles and howls until the rite is severed or the madness takes root.
I’ve never made it to the end of a cycle.
So I watched him.
Callis.
The boy in my bed. The boy at my table. The boy with skin kissed by temple sun and a voice like an unwritten hymn.
He sat in the curve of the lounge, one leg drawnbeneath him, a loose robe gathered around his hips. The fabric slid off one shoulder like it had been charmed to follow the line of his collarbone. He was quiet, blinking against the morning light that poured through the high windows and dappled across his chest. His curls were still damp. He smelled like rosewater and sleep.
He reached for a grape.
The motion was simple, but it slowed the room.
He plucked it from the carved silver stem and brought it to his lips—not quickly, not carelessly, just… gently. He bit, and I watched the juice bead on his lower lip before his tongue swept it away. My own breath caught.
It shouldn’t have affected me like that.
It wasn’t lewd. It wasn’t even intentional. He didn’t glance at me or offer a smile. He simply reached for another.
I turned toward the window.
The chambers felt too small suddenly. The air too close. I didn’t trust myself to stay in that room. Not with the weight of what I wanted pressing hot and reckless behind my ribs.
He deserved gentleness. Time. He deserved a bond that didn’t pull apart at the seams.
But the clock had already started. One cycle. One moon. If this failed, there wouldn’t be another.
I stood, careful not to let my expression shift.
“There’s fresh bread if you want more,” I said without turning. “And the courtyard should be quiet if you need air.”
I felt his eyes on my back.
Then I walked out, before I could do something stupid—like kneel beside him and kiss the juice from his mouth. Like press my hand to his chest and ask him to lie back just once more.
Like beg.
The garden path shimmered with dew, soft underfoot, the scent of crushed lavender rising with every step. My sandals made no sound against the stone.
The Temple of Aerius stood open to the morning, a sweep of pale columns veiled in flowering vines. Sunlight spilled down its western face, catching in the blue-glass mosaics that depicted the sacred roots of the world. This was the wing that faced the rising light. This was the wing from which, if the day was right, one could see the Bridge to the Gods. A mirage, perhaps, or a trick, but in the mist and the infusion of hope, many claimed to see the flicker of what our bonds and our rituals built.
I came often before the others stirred—not for favor or recognition.
As a Thorn of the Verdant Path, my duty was to tend to the slow things. Growth. Ceremony. The discipline of presence. Where others burned bright and fast, we held. We cultivated. In time, the temple might name a Thorn who had proven his steadiness a Vinekeeper—a title of both fire and calm regard. A keeper of bonds. A guide. That was the next step I wanted.
Nothing more.
Not yet one of the Elders, not a Flame on the High Council. That kind of authority required years.
But I was running out of time.