And through it—through the hollow ringing ache—I felt him.
A flicker. A breath that was not mine. A thought that hovered just behind my own.
Not words. Not quite. Not like speech.
But presence.
He was with me. Not beside me, not before me. In me.
Auren.
I sat up slowly, heartbeat wild in my throat. Iclosed my eyes and reached for him—not with my hands, but with whatever it was the bond had made of me. I let it pour out of me. My grief. My gratitude. The ache that pulsed with every pull of the ship’s hull against the sea.
A whisper stirred at the edge of my mind. Not sound. Not even shape. But it was his.
I pushed one thought forward like a prayer:It hurts.
It hung in the dark. In silence.
And then—slowly, achingly, unmistakably—came the answer:Yes. It does.A pause.I lied.
The bond quivered.
Not like before. Not with lust, or longing, or even promise.
With pain. Shared. Borne between us like a weight neither of us could drop.
And then it began to fade.
The tether loosened. The warmth behind my ribs began to cool. A flicker, a silence. I gasped, like I’d been pulled from water.
He was leaving.
No—not leaving. Just… receding. The tide going out, taking part of me with it. That was how bonds ended. Not with a knife. With a slow unraveling.
The pain didn’t stop. But now, it was mine alone.
His presence had receded like a wave that forgets the shore. One moment, I could still feel the shape of him in my chest—vague and distant, but there—and the next, he was gone. Not severed. Not torn away. Just… gone.
And I was left behind.
I sat there in the dim glow of the swinging lantern, listening to the wood groan and the sea slap the hull. The sway of the ship was gentle, but relentless. Everything moved. Everything shifted, except the hollowness inside me. That stayed. That rooted.
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. I didn’t want to cry again. I was tired of crying. But the ache had no shape, and grief, when it filled you like this, had no rules.
Above me, I heard the distant sound of boots crossing the deck. A murmur of laughter. The clatter of something being hoisted. Life continued. The men had tasks. Purpose. Morning bread. Sea birds trailing behind the stern.
I had no such thing.
I stood slowly, joints aching from sitting so long on the cot, and crossed to the crates stacked in the corner of the cabin. My palm skimmed the rough linen bindings, the wax seals, the soft bulge of scrolls packed in hay. I reached for one—just to touch something he’d touched—but I didn’t open it. I wasn’t ready to see what he had chosen to gift me. Not yet.
I crouched and ran my fingers along the floorboards behind the nearest stack. The lantern cast low shadows, and I blinked against their blur.
And then I saw it.
Tucked behind the crates, almost hidden, sat a smaller chest. A polished box of darkwood, no larger than a folded tunic. Its corners were bound in brass, and a length of silk ribbon, pale gold, had been tiedonce around the middle and knotted carefully at the top.
My heart kicked.