We just breathed.
And in that breath?—
The bond surged again.
Not entirely broken.
Not quite dying.
Beckoning.
The light struck the obelisk at a slant, gilding its runes in fire. The tall grass around me danced in the breeze, golden tips catching the last breath of the sun. I stood motionless, arms folded around my knees, as though stillness might hold the ache at bay. My back was stiff like the stone behind me. I had come with no reason but grief, and grief had welcomed me like an old companion.
For one impossible moment, I thought the gods were teasing me with memory. I blinked. I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. The world narrowed to the figure on that slope.
My chest collapsed. I took the first step slowly, blood roaring in my ears.
Callis took a step toward me. His eyes—those eyes I’d dreamed of all night —were rimmed red, not with pain, but with choice. Deliberate. Defiant. Alive.
“You knew,” he said, voice low, barely reaching me through the wind, “that the pendant could turn the ship around. That it would buy my passage back.”
My throat tightened. “Or make you rich when you returned home.”
He shook his head. That same, small, lopsided smile that had undone me a dozen times broke free of his solemnity. “What are riches,” he asked, voice catching, “compared to you?”
And I couldn’t wait anymore.
I moved.
Down the slope. Through the grass. Every stride felt like falling forward into something eternal. Callis didn’t wait—he ran to meet me, cloak flaring behind him. We collided like prayer and answer, arms tangled, faces buried in shoulders, breath shared in desperate gasps.
The bond didn’t flare.
It roared. Not with fire. Not with grief. But with recognition. With light. With something so whole and ancient I felt the very ground shift beneath us. I clungto him—not to keep him here, but to let myself believe that he truly was.
“You came back,” I whispered.
“I couldn’t not,” he said, hands threading into my hair.
The obelisk behind us pulsed with shadow. I felt its pull like a third soul in our embrace, bearing witness.
This was what the ancients meant when they said the gods drew nearer with each true bond. When they said the first bridge had been laid not in stone, but in surrender. It wasn’t about permanence. It was about return.
“I couldn’t stop thinking of you,” Callis said. “Even when I closed myself off. Even when I tried to forget. The bond wouldn’t let me. You wouldn’t let me.”
“No,” I murmured, and kissed the corner of his mouth, then his cheek, then his brow. “I didn’t know how.”
We held each other for what felt like seasons.
Then, softly, Callis pulled back just enough to meet my eyes. “Can we renew the bond?”
The words trembled between us.
He searched my face, vulnerable, scared. “Do you want to?”
I touched his cheek. My hand fit there like it always had. “Yes.”
His breath shuddered.
