And I felt it.
His hope, blooming inside him like a candle suddenly fed with air. He had felt my thought. Of course he had. The bond was perfect now. There was nothing I could hide from him.
His eyes met mine. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. But the air around us tightened, expectant.
“You who have been joined, now come to part,” the priest said, voice unshaken. “Not as punishment, nor as loss, but as the completion of what was sacred.”
I barely breathed.
The moment was slipping.
But I said nothing.
“You have walked as one. You have grown. You have given. And now, in the still hour before the sun, you return to yourselves.”
The priest held out the chalice.
Auren’s hand tensed in mine. His fingers twitched like he might speak, might refuse.
He turned to me. One final chance.
But I didn’t move.
The ache in my throat was too much. The doubt too large.
Auren exhaled—so softly I barely heard it.
And then he let go.
Auren released my hand to take the chalice, drank, then passed it to me. The wine was dark and bitter, laced with herbs I couldn’t name.
We each placed a fingertip to the folded cloth, as instructed.
The priest whispered the severance rite—just a few lines, in the Old Tongue. It wasn’t theatrical. It wasn’t cruel. It was simple.
There was no jolt. No gasp. No flash of pain.
Only… nothing.
No swell. No pressure.
The bond was gone.
But I didn’t feel it. Not really.
Not yet.
Auren remained still, eyes fixed on the candle’s flame. I studied his face, waiting for some sign of collapse, of shattering. None came.
The priests gathered the cloth, the chalice, the flame. Without fanfare, they bowed and left us alone in the soft blue hush of early morning.
It was over.
Yet the only thing I felt was silence.
Auren turned to me. I thought he might say something. He didn’t. His mouth parted, then closed again, and he offered only a nod.
He walked with me out of the chamber, the light just beginning to catch along the stained glasswindows behind us—rose and gold and violet beginning to bloom on the floor.
