Page 50 of Golden Bond


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“And they made love,” I murmured, “and where their bodies met, the flower sprang forth.”

Callis met my gaze. “It wasn’t the power that created it. It was the joy.”

My throat tightened. I had never heard anyone say it quite like that.

“I have other scrolls,” I said after a moment. “Tales from the southern dialects. Their versions are stranger, but lovely. If you’d like, I could bring them.”

His smile grew, sleepy and content. “My old temple had only fragments. Glosses. I used to sneak into the archives just to read the torn edges of stories.I don’t know how I’ll live without the full texts once I go back.”

I stilled.

Go back?

He meant to leave.

I swallowed. “You plan to return to your home temple?”

He blinked slowly. “Yes. Once the cycle ends.”

“You miss it?”

“I do,” he said softly, stretching out his legs under the sheet. “It was quiet. Predictable. I knew where I stood in the rhythm of the days. Morning prayers, herb gathering, scripture at dusk. Here… everything’s richer. More intense. But it’s not my home. When the debt is repaid…”

“You’ve repaid the debt,” I said. “Your arrival alone satisfied the temple. Your work has been… devout.”

“But the bond?—”

“Many young men arrive and never bond,” I said, voice steady. “They train. They serve. They illuminate. The bond is not a transaction. It is a holy rite.”

His eyes widened, hope flaring behind them. “So I’m… free?”

I nodded once. There shouldn’t have been a reason to feel so spurned.

And I watched the light in him rise like dawn.

My chest ached.

I sat up slowly and reached for myseret, draping it over my shoulder. My hands moved too carefully, too measured. I crossed the room, poured myself a cupof wine, and took a long sip before turning back to him.

“If you wish,” I said quietly, “we can dissolve the bond. Tonight. You may return home.”

Silence followed.

Then, carefully: “Would it hurt?”

“No,” I lied. He wouldn’t hurt nearly as much as I.

He sat up too, propping himself on one elbow. His hair was a tousled halo. I couldn’t bear to look at him for long.

“I need to tell you something,” I said, too quickly. “This bond—it’s my fourth. The others… failed. And without the completion of one, I cannot advance. I can never become a Vinekeeper.”

He stilled completely.

“Our order serves the divine by tending not only the land, but the spirit of connection. We’re meant to cultivate the bonds that rise among us and bring them to fullness. Only by finishing one can I place it upon the path, like a stone in the bridge between men and the gods. Without it, I am… nothing more than a servant to others who have walked that path.”

I looked down into the wine.

“I would ask—only if you don’t find me unbearable—that you stay until the cycle ends. Another fortnight. That’s all.”