Page 24 of Golden Bond (Pleasure Palace #1)

Chapter

Thirteen

AUREN

T he city had not yet shaken off its sleep.

We walked side by side through streets still silvered by night, though the first fingers of sun had begun to stretch over the tiled roofs and low walls of Eletheria.

The air was damp with morning, tinged with salt and figwood ash.

I heard the faint bray of a distant donkey, the clatter of a shutter drawn back.

But mostly, there was stillness. A soft breath held between night and day.

I didn’t speak at first.

Callis’s steps were quiet beside mine, measured, graceful in that way he never tried to be. He wore the traveling robes I had left for him—soft, sand-hued linen with a wrap for the wind. I had chosen the color myself. It made his skin look sunlit even in shadow.

In the folds of my seret , I felt the hard corners of the wooden box press against my ribs.

My fingers brushed it once, then again, as if to remind myself it was real. That I would give it to him. That I would let him go.

“This early light…” I said, to break the silence. My voice sounded softer than I expected. “It always makes the temple walls look pink. As if the whole city were blushing.”

Callis gave a faint smile. “I noticed. The first time we went to the baths and I looked down.”

“You stopped at the corner where the two gardens meet.”

He looked over. “You remember that?”

I nodded. “I remember everything.”

There it was again—the temptation to say more. To reach for his hand. To ask, Are you sure ?

But I kept walking.

We turned through a narrow passage that opened toward the slope of the harbor road.

Below us, the sea glinted, calm and endless.

And there, at the far edge of the docks, the ship waited.

Its sails were still furled. The hull sat proud in the water, painted in quiet stripes of faded blue.

No banners, no fanfare. Just wood and rope and the promise of elsewhere.

I hated it.

“Looks smaller than I remember,” I murmured.

“It’s perfect,” Callis said.

The pain was so clean, so sharp, I had to look away. I watched a pair of dockhands begin to load crates onto the vessel—scroll-chests bound with sun-oiled rope, marked for Callis’s temple. My gift. My consolation prize .

The scent of cedar and sea brine filled my nose. Somewhere, a gull shrieked.

I glanced sideways, catching the set of his jaw, the way the wind played with the fringe of his wrap.

The bond fluttered between us—uncertain, flickering, as if it too were caught in some great unmaking.

I had thought severing it would bring relief, clarity.

But it hadn’t happened yet. And in its last throes, the bond trembled like a body that knew it was about to be cut open.

I wanted to speak. I wanted to scream. I said nothing.

We reached the edge of the dock.

Callis looked out at the ship, face unreadable, then back at me. The silence stretched.

I slipped the box from my seret and held it out.

“For when you’re underway. Open it once you’ve had a moment to breathe.”

He accepted it without question. His fingers brushed mine. He didn’t look away.

And I thought—just for that heartbeat—that I wouldn’t survive this.

But I did. I let go.

And the distance between us, once so sacred, began to grow.

Callis tucked the box into the satchel slung over his shoulder, fingers lingering just a moment too long on the flap before letting it fall shut. His eyes flicked toward the gangplank. Then to me.

“It’s time,” he said softly .

The words carved something out of me.

I nodded. I didn’t trust my voice. I stepped forward instead, gathering him into my arms—not tightly, not possessively, but wholly.

As if my body remembered the shape of him and feared it would forget.

His head rested against my shoulder. His breath warmed my throat.

My hands pressed against the small of his back, memorizing the lines of muscle under the traveling robes.

I didn’t know how long we stood like that.

When we finally broke apart, our arms fell slowly. Like the limbs of tired dancers, refusing to let the final note fade.

Callis looked at me one last time. His lips parted, as though to say something more.

But he didn’t.

He turned toward the ship.

Each step he took away from me struck like a chisel. I didn’t move. I didn’t call out. I had given him my silence, and I would honor it.

And then?—

The bond surged.

It hit me like a blow. A wildfire of heat and ache, not fading but flaring, wild and sharp and close to breaking. It screamed in my chest, no longer quiet or reverent. Not acceptance. Not peace.

Need.

I staggered, a hand going to my heart, to the place where his echo still lived.

He turned. I felt it before I saw it. That same arrest in his breath. The way his body halted like it had heard a prayer.

We moved at once.

No words.

I met him halfway, on the planks that smelled of salt and pitch, the morning sun flashing gold behind him. His arms came around me before mine found him, our mouths colliding in a kiss that had no beginning and no shape—just heat and want and desperate, beautiful panic.

My hands framed his jaw, my thumbs against the arch of his cheeks. His fingers clenched at my sides. The kiss wasn’t tender. It wasn’t soft. It was fire drawn from a dying hearth, a miracle strike of warmth in the cold.

Hope bloomed, terrifying and bright.

And then we parted again.

He was the one to step back.

I saw it in his eyes: the ache, the guilt, and more.

He touched my wrist as if to say thank you, or forgive me, or please don’t follow. I didn’t know which.

Then he turned, for the last time, and walked up the gangplank.

I didn’t follow.

The ship creaked as he boarded, its timbers shifting under new weight. Voices called orders. The sails were drawn. The ropes released.

And still I stood there.

Until the gangplank was raised.

Until the last of the dockhands drifted away .

Until the prow curved slowly, gently, out of sight—taking with it the only thing I had ever wanted to keep.

The dock was quiet now. Empty of sound. Empty of him.

The sun rose.

The bond, fierce only moments ago, began to loosen.

And I stood alone, heart hollow, as Eletheria stirred into day.

The city had woken while I watched the ship vanish. Market stalls groaned open. The scent of flatbread and lemon oil floated up from bakeries tucked into the lower alleys. Temple chimes began to toll, calling the acolytes to their prayers.

I walked slowly—through the winding streets I knew like my own breath, past courtyards and mosaics and sun-warmed walls that had always been there, unchanged.

My feet carried me by habit, not purpose, until I found myself crossing the outer gates of the temple complex, the high arch of Aerius’s dome rising into the morning sky.

Inside, the air was cool and dry. I moved quietly along the marbled corridor, past painted shutters and shallow alcoves filled with offerings. At the inner cloister, a young steward rose from his kneel and approached me with a reverent bow.

“You have no duties today, Thorn,” he said, voice gentle. “The Vinekeeper sends his blessing. You are to rest now. To heal.”

Rest. Heal .

I thanked him with a nod I barely felt and turned away.

The quiet pressed close as I left the temple. Not an unwelcome silence—but a heavy one.

I walked without thinking, through the palace gates, into the eastern grounds. The orchards welcomed me with their curling branches and dappled light. I moved among them like a ghost, trailing fingers along low limbs, brushing against soft fruit as if they might speak.

One peach, heavy and warm, caught my hand.

I plucked it.

I bit.

The taste was sweet, then sharp. I chewed slowly, watching the shadows shift beneath the trees.

When I swallowed, I looked over my shoulder.

Nothing.

No barefoot footsteps in the dirt. No quiet laugh behind the foliage. No glint of golden skin in the branches.

I kept walking, past the orchard, down the winding slope, and toward the northern stream.

The water still ran clear. Still curved around the rocks where moss softened the edges. The place where I first saw him—startled, mouth parted, water on his lips.

The bond stirred faintly. A thread. A whisper.

I looked toward the bank and felt the pull of hope in my chest.

Nothing.

Just wind in the reeds .

I sat down anyway, cross-legged on the grass, the peach stone warm in my hand. The ache I had been staving off—word by word, step by step—cracked open.

I buried my face in my palm.

And let it come.