"Thank you," I said to Callis, though the words felt inadequate for what he'd offered.
"Thank Elyon," he replied with that same serene smile. "I merely shared what the god taught me—that some questions can only be answered by living them."
I left the temple no closer to certainty than when I'd entered, but somehow the weight in my chest felt different. Not lighter, exactly, but more purposeful. The days ahead would bring their own challenges, their own moments of decision. When the time cameto choose between duty and desire, between loyalty to Orders and the truth we both knew, I would have no guide but my own heart.
Perhaps that would be enough.
Perhaps it would have to be.
The sun climbed higher as I walked back toward our chambers, toward Rion and the precious few days we had remaining. Whatever answers awaited, I would find them in the space between us—in the bond that had already changed me more than any scholarly pursuit ever could.
Five days to discover whether love could indeed illuminate the path forward.
Five days to learn whether faith might prove stronger than fear.
Chapter
Fourteen
RION
Dawn came like a blade across my throat, silver light cutting through the gauze curtains with merciless precision. I lay still in the pre-dawn darkness, listening to the steady rhythm of Kaelen's breathing beside me, memorizing the sound as if it were a prayer I might need to recite in darker days ahead.
Today.
The word sat heavy in my chest, cold and final as winter stone. Today was the last day we would wake in the same bed, share the same air, exist in the sacred space we had carved from duty and desire. Tonight, when the moon reached its zenith, we would walk together into the chamber where bonds were severed, where the golden thread between us would be cut clean as any sword stroke.
I turned my head to study his sleeping face, painted silver by the early light. His dark hair fell across his brow in gentle waves, and his lips wereslightly parted, as if he might speak some dream-wisdom to the waking world. He looked younger in sleep, unmarked by the careful control he wore like armor during daylight hours.
Beautiful. He was so beautiful it made my chest ache.
The bond hummed between us, perhaps sensing the approaching end, carrying whispers of his dreams—fragments of gardens and scrolls and hands that reached but never quite touched. Even in sleep, he searched for me. Even in dreams, we found each other.
But dreams would end. They always did.
I slipped from the bed with the careful silence of someone who had learned to move through enemy territory, gathering my training clothes with hands that trembled only slightly. The morning routine felt foreign, hollow—as if I were performing the motions of a life that no longer fit properly.
When I reached the door, I paused, looking back at the bed where Kaelen lay wrapped in silk and shadows. The urge to return, to wake him with gentle kisses and pretend this day was like any other, nearly overwhelmed me. But that would only make the ending harder. Better to let him wake slowly, to give him these last few hours of peace before duty called us both to our separate fates.
"I love you," I whispered to the sleeping figure, the words barely more than breath. Then I stepped into the corridor and closed the door behind me with the finality of a tomb sealing.
The training yards stretched before me like a battlefield where I'd already lost the war. My fellow militants moved through their morning preparations with the easy confidence of men who knew their place in the world, who had never questioned the shape of their lives or the price of their ambitions.
"Late this morning," Talis observed as I approached, his voice carrying the gentle reproach of someone who'd grown accustomed to my punctuality. "Bond keeping you from your duties?"
If only he knew how thoroughly the bond had become my duty, how completely my world had reorganized itself around Kaelen's presence. "Something like that," I managed.
Alyon looked up from adjusting his practice sword, dark eyes sharp with the kind of perception that came from years of reading battlefields and the men who fought on them. "Last day, isn't it? Tomorrow you'll be free to focus on proper pursuits again."
Free. The word tasted like ash on my tongue.
"Yes," I said, accepting the practice blade someone handed me. "Tomorrow."
The morning drills passed in a haze of clumsy movements and mistimed strikes. My body, usually precise, felt foreign and unresponsive. I stumbled through forms I'd mastered years ago, missed parries a child could have executed, and found myself staring at nothing while instructions were given around me.
"Rion!" Sergeant Korven's voice cut through my stupor like a lash. "If you're going to train with yourhead in the clouds, perhaps you should find a cloud to spar with instead of wasting your brothers' time."
Heat flooded my cheeks as laughter rippled through the assembled militants. I straightened, tried to summon the focus that had once come as naturally as breathing, but it was like grasping smoke. Everything felt distant, unreal, as if I were watching someone else's life through thick glass.
