And the bond—gods, the bond was so alive.
It curled toward him like a vine seeking sunlight. Like a flower opening toward warmth. But he never reached back. Never once touched me, not even by accident. Not even in sleep. I’d woken once to find him curled far on the other side of the bedding, arms tucked to his chest like he was afraid to take up space. Afraid to be too near me.
I hadn’t moved. I hadn’t dared.
I tried to lose myself in routine. In ceremony. In the upkeep of the cloisters and the cleansing rites. I polished the copper basins in the Hall of Repose until they gleamed, taught the dusk prayers to three new acolytes, even spent a half-day translating a petition scroll from a vineyard on the isle of Ithar. Anything to avoid the slow, molten tension rising in my chest.
But even the scrolls betrayed me.
Every tale we read together seemed suddenlychanged. The lovers met in moonlight. The gods whispered through touch. Even the metaphors felt like teeth.
I’d glance at Callis beside me on the bench—elbow nearly brushing mine, face intent on some dusty volume—and my thoughts unraveled.
The way his fingers curled around a stylus, delicate but sure. The furrow of his brow when he concentrated. The small, habitual movement he made when shifting his weight: a roll of his shoulder that left the edge of hisseretslipping low on one arm, revealing a sliver of pale collarbone and the curve of muscle just above the chest.
The first time I saw it, I turned away sharply. The second time, I didn’t.
He spoke to me in the evenings, and the sound of his voice—warm, unguarded in his excitement about some passage or name he’d uncovered—settled like heat low in my belly.
He didn’t mean to tease. He didn’t know how tightly I was wound. That each moment near him chipped away at the shell of discipline I’d spent years crafting.
And still he offered nothing.
No touch. No glance that lingered.
Perhaps he was shy. Perhaps he was overwhelmed. Or perhaps—perhaps he simply wasn’t drawn to me at all.
That thought lodged like a splinter behind my ribs.
He had chosen me for the bond. Spoken the words with reverence. But desire… desire couldn’t be forced. And I was no god of light or poetry. Just a Thorn. Just a man trying not to bleed longing into every silence between us.
And silence there was.
It settled between us like the weight of hot wax, fluid and pressing. Sometimes I caught him watching me—but only briefly, only when he thought I wouldn’t notice. He looked away too quickly for me to trust it meant anything more.
So I smiled. I kept distance.
And I burned.
The nights grew warmer.
Not just from the season’s turn, but from something deeper—like heat rising from the foundation of the palace itself. The kind that coiled in your lungs and stayed there, humming just beneath the surface.
We still read together. Always at the long bench, always in the same hush, a moonstone lamp between us and parchment laid wide. I’d let him choose the scrolls, just to watch the small flicker of decision in his brow. Just to see his fingers hover and settle. One night, as he reached for a glossed parable of Elyon’s trials, my hand moved for the same one—and our fingers brushed.
Just a graze.
But the bond snapped taut like a plucked string.
I felt his breath catch. He didn’t pull away. He just froze, eyes on the scroll, body perfectly still except for the sudden shift in the air around him.
I drew my hand back slowly. Waited. Hoped.
But he said nothing. He only opened the scroll and began to read.
The bond pulsed for nearly an hour after that. Slow. Persistent. As if waiting for one of us to name it.
Another night, we sat too close. The bench was long enough to leave space, but we’d drifted across the middle of it, shoulder nearly to shoulder. I didn’t move. Neither did he. His thigh brushed mine once, and I felt him go still again—then soften.
