Page 14 of Golden Bond

Saw me.

Read me.

And then, without introduction, he said: “The debtor.”

The word landed like a slap.

I froze, my fingers curling beneath the surface of the water.

Of course. Another boy with too-perfect features and too-loose clothes, roaming the woods to gloat over his unearned place here. Another golden god with nothing better to do than remind me that I didn’t belong. That I was summoned, not selected.

“That’s what they call me, is it?” I said, voice low.

He didn’t answer. Just stood there at the edge of the pool, the dappled sunlight tracing gold across his bare shoulder.

Hisseretwas undone—barely held at the hip, the top half hanging loose and open across his torso. His skin glistened faintly with sweat or water or both. I didn’t want to notice. Didn’t want to see the way the fabric swayed, the way the breeze lifted his hair. Didn’t want to wonder what it would feel like to run a hand down that line of exposed skin.

But I saw all of it. And I hated him for it. I hated him instantly.

I squared my shoulders, forcing my voice level. “If you’re going to mock someone, you might want to tie your ownseretfirst. Yours looks like it’s halfway to the ground.”

His lips curled—not into a frown, but something more amused. A smirk, deliberate and slow.

“Do you always greet strangers by inspecting their hems?”

“Only the ones who forget to wear them properly.”

He stepped forward.

Not into the water, but just to the edge—where the light hit him fully. “And yet you’re the one bathing naked in a sacred stream.”

I felt the heat rise to my face. “I came here for solitude. Not whatever game you think this is.”

“Solitude,” he echoed. “Is that what the peach was for?”

My mouth opened. Closed. I looked down at the water.

“That was for me.”

His head tilted, studying me the way one might examine a painting from a distance. “And do you always moan after fruit, or is that new?”

My spine snapped straight.

“You were watching?”

“Not intentionally,” he said, not even pretending to sound guilty. “But I wasn’t about to interrupt something that honest.”

I moved toward the bank, the water sloshing gently around me. I didn’t care that I was naked now. That was his game. His arena. I wouldn’t flinch.

“You must get bored easily,” I said. “Roaming around the woods, spying on strangers like it’s a pastime.”

“And you must be used to going unnoticed.”

The words stung harder than they should have. Because they weren’t entirely untrue.

I climbed out of the pool with slow, deliberate control. I didn’t cover myself. I didn’t run for theseret. If he wanted to look, let him.

He didn’t look away.