And for the first time, I felt that maybe—just maybe—I could build something that would last too.
I stared at him, throat tight with something I couldn’t name. The wind moved gently through the tall grass behind us, but I didn’t feel it. Not really. All I could feel was Auren—the soft gleam of his eyes, the measured stillness in his voice, the quiet reverence that made everything he touched feel sacred.
I wanted to believe every word he said.
But his expression shifted. Not in anger. Not quite in sadness, either. Something dimmer. Wearier.
“Not all believe,” he said quietly. “Not in waiting. Not in slow devotion. There are voices—some loud, some ancient—that say the gods have already spoken. That we are the ones who must act now. That to honor them is to raise temples beyond these islands, to bring their name to lands untouched by their light.” His fingers trailed over the edge of the carved stone beside us. “Some think the basin is already full.”
He didn’t name them. He didn’t have to.
I’d seen them. Soldiers. More disciplined priests. The harder eyes among certain ones.
Auren’s gaze returned to the sea.
“I serve the Path of Verdant Balance,” he said. “We build the bridge one bond at a time. But others… they speak of towers. Of fire. Of dominion. As if conquest could summon divinity faster than love ever could.”
“I’ve read that it happened before. A scroll I copied once,” I admitted.
Auren nodded. “And the gods put madness in the mind of the man who was responsible.”
He looked back at me then, and his eyes softened again.
“I don’t believe in conquest.”
Neither did I.
How could I? How could I believe in it after the divine pleasure we shared in our endless nights?
Chapter
Eleven
AUREN
The scent of crushed resin lingered on my fingers as I pressed the incense into the brass bowl. I struck the flame. A low curl of smoke lifted toward the skylight above, catching in the early rays that slipped down between the stone beams. It was still morning. The sun had only just begun its climb, and the light in the temple was that pale, perfect gold that seemed to soften even the marble beneath our feet.
I moved slowly through my tasks, careful not to rush the rites. The prayers came easily—years of repetition had carved them into my tongue—but something about the cadence felt different now. Every syllable hummed deeper in my chest. Every step I took seemed bound to the earth.
It was the bond.
It had begun to swell inside me like warm water caught in a tide pool, rippling against the edges of mybreath. Not painful. Not urgent. But present. Steady. Thick with meaning.
When I closed my eyes, I felt him. Callis.
He wasn’t here, not physically in this wing. He’d gone early, as he often did, to scribe before the heat set in. But I felt him nonetheless. The bond stirred beneath my sternum like a second heartbeat, a warmth that pulsed through me with no clear rhythm. Sometimes it brushed the back of my throat when I spoke. Sometimes it tightened gently around my ribs when I bent to light the tapers. Sometimes it simply… waited. Holding me.
I paused at the altar, the offering bowl in hand, and let out a long breath I hadn’t meant to hold.
Callis.
Every time I thought of him now, I found myself lost in the quiet moments—the crease beside his mouth when he concentrated, the way his hair curled damply against his neck after the baths, the softness of his voice when he read aloud, halting only slightly when he came across an unfamiliar word. He was learning so quickly. Growing into himself. Into me.
And I—I was becoming something I hadn’t known I could be.
Whole.
“Are you still among us, Thorn Auren?”
