I shot him a dry look. “Is this supposed to be a blessing?”
“Don’t be precious, Auren. You know I wish you well.”
I did. But his tongue was too quick to let sincerity stand alone. We crossed into the shade of the tall olive trees that curled around the garden’s western edge said to be over two thousand years old, where the air smelled of crushed thyme and the faint bitterness of fig leaves. Here, sunlight splintered through high trellises, and the hush of the temple deepened.
Corin cast me a sidelong glance. “This is your fourth.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“And how is he?”
That question I didn’t answer right away. How was Callis? Still, searching. Tender, but distant. A boy with a cautious soul and a bond that fluttered in my chest like a bird that hadn’t decided whether to land or flee.
“New,” I said at last.
Corin gave a knowing hum, as if that one word told him everything. “They always are.”
We walked in silence for a while, the stones warmbeneath our feet as if we wore no sandals, ourseretswhispering softly with each step.
“You’re not what I expected,” I said.
“Mm?”
“Still unbonded. After Beren.”
Corin gave a low sigh and bent to examine a bush of silver-leaved rue, pinching off a sprig with the absentminded care of a scholar. “Beren was… good. But it was an easy bond. No friction, no fear. I think that’s worse, in some ways.”
“Worse?”
He straightened and met my gaze. “It didn’t stretch. It didn’t teach. It made me comfortable. And I don’t want to live my life in comfort.”
“You turned down the renewal?”
“With kindness. And a feast.” A half-smile curved his lips. “He wept, but not because he loved me. Because he thought he should.”
That sounded like Corin—clean exits, honest endings, always leaving just enough mystery to be missed.
“What now?” I asked.
“I’m focusing on elder cultivation,” he said. “Lorespells for saplings. I’ve been assigned to the second garden, where the willow-touched roots run shallow. It’s slow work. But they’ve started watching me for Vinekeeper trials.”
“You’re close, then.”
“Closer than you,” he said, not unkindly. “But you’ll get there.”
I wasn’t so sure. A Vinekeeper had to hold bonds the way earth held seed—with steadiness, with patience, with the quiet endurance of rain. I’d never lasted a cycle. The thought gnawed at me like the bitter edge of unripe fruit.
I didn’t speak it aloud.
Corin had turned toward the misted horizon where the Temple of the Flame rose above the far courtyards. Its tower shimmered faintly, caught in a veil of morning haze. A red-glass spire caught fire in the sun.
“You heard what Ilvaran proposed?” Corin asked, his voice lowered, though no one stood within earshot.
My spine stiffened. “No.”
His expression shifted—less teasing now, more guarded. “He stood before the Council of the Flame yesterday. Gilded in red robes, with a full retinue behind him. Declared that the time for passive sanctity has ended.”