Page 15 of Golden Bond (Pleasure Palace #1)

That sounded like Corin—clean exits, honest endings, always leaving just enough mystery to be missed.

“What now?” I asked.

“I’m focusing on elder cultivation,” he said. “Lorespells for saplings. I’ve been assigned to the second garden, where the willow-touched roots run shallow. It’s slow work. But they’ve started watching me for Vinekeeper trials.”

“You’re close, then.”

“Closer than you,” he said, not unkindly. “But you’ll get there. ”

I wasn’t so sure. A Vinekeeper had to hold bonds the way earth held seed—with steadiness, with patience, with the quiet endurance of rain. I’d never lasted a cycle. The thought gnawed at me like the bitter edge of unripe fruit.

I didn’t speak it aloud.

Corin had turned toward the misted horizon where the Temple of the Flame rose above the far courtyards. Its tower shimmered faintly, caught in a veil of morning haze. A red-glass spire caught fire in the sun.

“You heard what Ilvaran proposed?” Corin asked, his voice lowered, though no one stood within earshot.

My spine stiffened. “No.”

His expression shifted—less teasing now, more guarded. “He stood before the Council of the Flame yesterday. Gilded in red robes, with a full retinue behind him. Declared that the time for passive sanctity has ended.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What does that mean?”

“Measured response, he called it. For the outlying islands that failed to send their tributes last spring.”

“Measured,” I echoed. The word coiled cold around my ribs.

“He proposed inspections. Audits of their temple records. Suspension of our envoys. And—” Corin hesitated, his mouth a grim line “—the seizure of a merchant vessel, to ‘reassert sacred precedence.’”

My hands clenched beneath the folds of my robe. “That’s not discipline. That’s a raid. ”

“He wouldn’t say it that way.”

“Of course not. They never do. They call it balance. They call it divine order. But what they want is dominion.”

Corin gave a slow shrug. “Perhaps. But the Council listened.”

“They listened?”

“They didn’t vote. But they didn’t silence him, either.”

I stopped walking, the hem of my robe swaying gently around my ankles. We stood beneath a fig tree, its branches casting shifting patterns over the tiled stones.

“When the Red Famine struck,” I said, voice tight, “and three of our granaries burned in the same week, the gods did not demand gold. They sent rain. When the old trade routes collapsed under piracy, we sent prayers and patience, not ships. We lived off barley and wild goats and unripe pomegranates. And we were still holy.”

Corin was quiet.

“We were still holy,” I repeated. “Even when we had nothing. Even when we offered only song and ash and sweat.”

He looked away toward the temple towers. “Times have changed.”

“No,” I said. “People have. And some of them forget what it means to serve.”

Corin didn’t answer right away. He crouched beside a planter of rosemary and pinched a sprig between his fingers, breathing in its resinous scent .

“I don’t disagree,” he said finally. “But I try to understand both sides.”

“And that,” I snapped, “is your flaw.”

He stood slowly. “And yours, Auren, is forgetting that fire has two faces. It can warm. It can consume. You speak truth, but truth wrapped in flame will still burn those who try to hold it.”

The words stung because they were familiar.

I turned from the fig tree and let the silence stretch between us, heavy as wet linen. The air was warming fast, and the dew that had shimmered on the garden path was beginning to vanish. A bird chirped in the rafters above the walkway, bright and sharp against the hush.

“I don’t want to talk about politics,” I said finally.

Corin inclined his head. “Then don’t. Talk about your bond. About him.”

I looked toward the temple wall, imagining the scriptorium chambers tucked behind it, the rows of curved desks and baskets of ink, the crackling dryness of old vellum under lamplight.

“He’s young,” I said. “But not fragile. Curious. Observant. He asked if he could return to his temple work. Scribing. He loves the myths. Yet he asks for permissions.”

“Which myths?” Corin asked gently, not nearing my final judgment of Callis.

“The Old Cycle.”

He smiled. “You should’ve told him that you know the parables better than half the priests. That you used to write your own glosses for fun. ”

I shook my head. “If I had, he might have seen eagerness as pressure. He might have thought I was already chasing him through the bond.”

Corin’s gaze softened. “So don’t chase. But don’t vanish, either.”

I said nothing.

He reached out and brushed his knuckles lightly against my sleeve. “You’re not wrong about Ilvaran. But you can’t hold back the tide with fury. If you want this bond to hold, don’t waste your first days trying to shore up the island.”

“A bond is the island,” I murmured. “Each one. That’s what they forget.”

“Then show them what it means.”

A bell rang in the distance, high and silvery—the midmorning call to devotion. Corin stepped back toward the colonnade.

“You know where to find me,” he said with a faint smirk. “If you need another argument.”

I let out a long breath. “I’ll look forward to it.”

“Then feed the bond,” he called over his shoulder. “Or the gods will know you didn’t try.”

I watched him vanish behind the vines, then stood for a long moment beneath the dappled leaves, feeling the weight of the day settle on my shoulders.

Somewhere beyond the cloisters, in the scriptorium halls, Callis was likely bent over a scroll, fingers stained faintly with ink, lost in the shape of old letters and forgotten names. He was near, in air and stone and prayer.

But he still felt like someone I hadn’t yet reached .

Let this time be different , I thought.

Then I turned toward the cloister, where morning light spilled across the carved floor and the smell of sun-warmed marble rose sweet and clean.

Toward him.