Page 23 of Golden Bond (Pleasure Palace #1)

Chapter

Twelve

CALLIS

I couldn’t sleep.

Auren’s chest rose gently beside me, bare and golden in the pale glow of a single moonstone lamp left uncovered. His lips were parted slightly. A curl of hair clung to his temple. He looked young like this. Not younger in age, but untouched by sorrow. At peace.

The heat of his climax still burned inside my body, soaking its warmth into my marrow.

I turned my face into the pillow, but rest would not come. My body was heavy with satisfaction, sated and clean. But my thoughts stirred like birds trapped beneath a net.

There was a story I had once read—half-burned, its ending lost. It was about a man visited by a god, offered a place in the heavens. All he had to do was die at sunset.

The man accepted. Gratefully. He was to dine with the gods. So he cleaned his house, gave away his livestock, and bequeathed his lands to a cousin he’d never met. He made peace with those he had wronged and invited his friends for one last feast.

But as the day waned, the sweetness of the offer began to sour.

He walked through his fields one last time and touched the heads of grain.

He tasted wine and laughed so hard his ribs hurt.

And as sunset bled across the sky, fear crept in.

Not because he regretted the choice, but because he had enjoyed the day too much.

Life had bloomed again in him just when he meant to give it up.

The scroll ended there. Blackened by fire. No final lines. No answer.

I watched Auren shift in his sleep, a hand brushing across my stomach before slipping back to the sheets.

I rose quietly, trying not to wake him, and pulled a thin linen wrap over my shoulders.

The floor was cool against my feet as I stepped out into the hall, past the antechamber, and down into the gardens.

The moon hung low tonight, wide and solemn.

The grass, wet with dew, kissed my calves as I waded through it barefoot.

I walked past the citrus groves and down the terrace stairs, past the marble pool where we had once lingered in the afternoon sun.

I kept going until I reached the far field, just shy of the orchards, and sank to my knees in the tall grass.

The bond was still there, of course. A steady warmth behind my ribs. Softer now. Less demanding. More like breath.

I closed my eyes and offered no prayer in words— only gratitude. Gratitude for what had passed through me like flame and did not leave me burned.

My ship was waiting.

I had seen it just the night before, sails furled and cargo stowed.

The captain would hold it one more day. No longer.

Among the crates were the books Auren had gifted my temple.

Some of them older than anything we had ever seen.

Scrolls, fragments, glossaries. More knowledge than I could copy in a lifetime. Auren’s hands had packed them.

It should have thrilled me. It did. But it didn’t make the leaving easier.

I thought of home. Of the hard cot I’d slept in since I was twelve. Of sunlight through reed slats. Of sandals with fraying ties and the scent of hot ink and olive oil. Of the daily rhythm—the washing, the meals, the song that opened each day. It had never been easy, but it had always been mine.

And yet.

This had been mine too.

Not just the silks and the fruit and the open sky above the terrace. But the hours—those slow, impossible hours with Auren. His voice in the darkness. His breath on my neck. The sound of the gods in his stories. The way he touched me like it meant something. Like I meant something.

In this place, I had lived.

I had mattered. Not in name alone, or duty, but in purpose. I had taken part in something older and larger than myself. And I had loved.

A gust of wind stirred the trees, and I bowed my head into it. My hands folded over my knees. I breathed.

Time was passing.

The ritual hour would come before dawn.

And I would then be away.

I bowed my head and whispered, not knowing if the gods heard those who were unsure. “Show me the truth,” I murmured. “Not the easy path. Not the one I want. Just the one that’s right.”

The wind stilled.

I rose, brushing dew from my knees, and made my way back through the sleeping halls. The palace was silent, wrapped in shadow. I moved like breath through the corridors, trailing my fingers along cool stone, unsure if I was ready to feel what I already knew.

When I reached our rooms, the bed was empty.

My heart skipped, not with alarm, but with the ache of recognition. I saw the faintest glint of water through the stone arch at the far end of the chamber. Beyond it, past the gauze-draped threshold, lay the private bathing chamber. He must have woken after I left.

I stepped inside quietly.

There he was.

Auren sat in the water, alone, half-lit by the soft silver-blue shimmer of moonstone lanterns hung above.

The water stilled around him. His back was straight, shoulders bare above the surface, his hair curling damp at the nape of his neck.

He was facing away, hands resting on the curved rim of the basin as though he, too, were trying to hold still a moment that had already begun to pass.

My throat tightened.

It was ending. And he felt it too.

The bond no longer flickered between us—it thrummed. It was not a thread now but a second pulse. Not a whisper but a shared breath. Our hearts, I felt, beat in unison.

He didn’t turn. He didn’t need to. He knew I was there.

I crossed the tiles soundlessly and knelt beside the bath, folding the linen off my shoulders. I dipped the cloth into the warm water and wrung it out, my fingers shaking slightly. Then, with slow care, I reached forward and began to wash him.

His skin was smooth beneath the cloth. Hot from the water, solid beneath my hand. I swept gently along the curve of his shoulder, down the slope of his spine. My fingers lingered just long enough to remember him by. His breath hitched once—but he didn’t speak.

I had meant to thank him.

For the kindness in his silence. For the days he gave me without demand. For the softness of his touch when I had flinched from it. For never once hurrying me toward a bond he so clearly needed.

But even as I thought it, I knew I didn’t need to say it.

He knew.

He felt it.

That was the nature of the bond. There was no more hiding. No cleverness in speech. No mask I could wear that would shield me from him.

The cloth paused. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard against the sting behind them.

I would not cry. Not here. Not now. Not even when he gave me his goodbye.

The cloth moved in slow circles across his chest now, over the curve of his shoulder, the hollow of his throat.

Water clung to his skin in rivulets, catching on the dips and lines of muscle, tracing all the places I had come to know.

My other hand rested lightly on his arm, and I let myself lean in, closer, not for anything more than the warmth of him.

The moment stretched, heavy and golden, like the last slant of sun before dusk. Not a word passed between us. But every sweep of the cloth was a goodbye.

He exhaled quietly when I drew it down the length of his back one final time. Then he shifted, rising from the water with grace that made my throat tighten.

He stepped out, and I reached for the linen waiting on the carved stool beside us. I draped it over him with reverence, drying his skin with the care of a scribe preserving the last page of a sacred scroll.

He said nothing as he dressed, only gathering the folds of his seret around him with quiet precision. It was plain ivory cloth, the simplest of garments. But when he turned to me, it looked as if he wore the silks of the Khorin Isle, woven with moonlight and status.

He swallowed .

Then he stepped closer, took my hands in his, and held them like something breakable.

He didn’t need to ask. But he did.

“Are you ready?”

No. Not even close.

“Yes,” I said.

A lie.

He knew it.

I knew it.

But still, he nodded.

A soft knock broke the hush of the room, muffled but unmistakable. We both turned, breath held in that fragile space between moments.

The door creaked open.

A steward stood in the archway, moonstone lantern in hand. Its glow steady, casting silver light over his face, over the folds of his robes. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His head remained bowed in quiet reverence, as if even the act of witnessing this moment was a kind of prayer.

Behind him, the corridor stretched in silver and golden silence, dappled with the glow of moonstones and oil lamps lit for the hour before dawn.

Auren looked at me, our hands still joined. His grip softened.

Then he let go.

The air between us cooled the instant his fingers slipped from mine.

He stepped forward.

And I followed—not because I was ready, but because there was no other road I wanted to walk .

The chamber was cool with silence. Its vaulted ceiling rose into shadows, the stained glass along the eastern wall still dark, waiting on the first touch of dawn. Lanterns flickered in niches carved into the pale stone, casting long, slow-moving reflections onto the polished floor.

I walked beside Auren, our footsteps soft.

The steward who had come for us stood at the threshold now, head bowed, his lantern covered.

We stepped past him into the heart of the chamber, and I felt something tighten—not the bond, not anymore.

Something quieter. Something smaller. Like breath held too long.

Three robed priests awaited us. I recognized none of them, their faces obscured beneath the ceremonial hoods of their Order. They didn’t look up as we entered, only motioned gently for us to approach the central dais.

A low table stood there, no more than knee-high. Upon it, a chalice of dull gold, its surface traced with symbols I didn’t know. A folded square of white cloth. A candle already lit.

The bond was still inside me. I felt it. Steady, like a second heartbeat.

Auren took my hand one last time as we stood before the table. His fingers were warm, steady. I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t.

The lead priest stepped forward. His voice, when he spoke, was gentle and low .

I thought about speaking.

The words hovered on the back of my tongue—like a breath drawn too deep, too sudden, threatening to turn into something irreversible.

What if I said no?

What if I stepped forward, took Auren’s hand again, and asked them to wait?

It would be so simple. The ritual would stop. The bond would hold. Auren would?—

I looked at him.

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 glass windows behind us—rose and gold and violet beginning to bloom on the floor.

We left as two men.

Not bonded.

Not anything.

And yet, something in me ached as though I’d left a piece of myself on that altar.

Auren said nothing, and neither did I.

But I felt it.

A ghost of warmth. A hum below the silence. And I wondered if severance was ever truly clean.