Rion licked his lips, a gesture I had seen him make a hundred times when wrestling with difficult decisions. Sweat beaded on his brow despite the chamber's coolness, and his free hand moved to adjust his seret where it had shifted in the heat of nervousness. The motion caused the collar to catch more light, silk gleaming against his throat like liquid starfire.
My collar. My gift. My mark upon his willing flesh.
The sight shattered every careful wall I had built around my resignation. This man—this beautiful, strong, surrendering soul—wore my claiming even to his own undoing. He would speak words of release while my silk whispered against his skin, would tear apart our bond while still displaying the symbol of his devotion.
The cruelty of it struck me like a physical blow.
"Wait," I said, the word escaping before conscious thought could shape it.
Every eye in the chamber turned toward me. Priest Myris raised an eyebrow in gentle inquiry. Captain Thane's expression remained unchanged, thoughsomething flickered behind his steady gaze. Elder Lysias leaned forward with the interest of someone observing an unexpected variable in a controlled experiment.
But it was Rion's face that mattered, Rion's storm-dark eyes that widened with something that might have been hope or might have been terror. Through the bond, I felt his pulse spike, felt the way his breathing caught as if he had been holding his breath for the past twenty-eight days and only now remembered how to draw air into his lungs.
"Forgive me, Priest Myris," I said, my voice gaining strength with each word, "but I cannot go through with this."
The silence that followed felt pregnant with possibility and disaster in equal measure. I could hear my own heartbeat thundering in my ears, could feel the weight of institutional expectation pressing down like stone. But stronger than fear was the certainty that blazed through me, white-hot and undeniable.
"I claim Rion as mine."
The words echoed off marble walls, carrying truth so fundamental it seemed to reshape the very air around us. I had not planned them, had not rehearsed this moment during the sleepless hours before dawn. They rose from some deep place I had not known existed, spoken with the authority of someone who had finally stopped fighting what they were meant to become.
The bond between us convulsed like a living thing, pulsing with emotions too complex to untangle. Fearraced through the connection—not of my words, but of their implications. Hope bloomed alongside terror, desire tangled with doubt. I tried to channel reassurance through our link, tried to let him feel my certainty even as my own hands shook with the magnitude of what I had just declared.
But before I could find the proper current through which to speak without words, Rion lifted his head. His spine straightened with the posture I had come to associate with decisions made and consequences accepted. Through the bond, I felt courage swell in him like dawn breaking over distant mountains.
"I accept," he said, his voice carrying clear as temple bells. "I choose to remain bound."
The scroll fell from his nerveless fingers, parchment whispering against stone as ancient words of severance scattered unspoken. His eyes found mine across the ceremonial space, and in their depths I saw the same wild relief that was surely reflected in my own gaze.
We had stepped off the cliff together. Now we would discover whether we could fly.
Captain Thane stepped forward, his expression grave with the weight of duty and disappointment combined. "Lieutenant, you understand what you surrender by this choice? The advancement, the enhanced standing within our order?"
Rion never looked away from my face as he answered, his voice steady despite the tremor I could feel running through him via our connection. "What I surrender could never equal what I choose to keep."
"The militant orders do not look kindly upon those who place personal desires above institutional loyalty," Thane continued, though something in his tone suggested the warning was offered more from obligation than conviction. "There will be consequences for this choice, paths that close, futures that narrow."
"Then perhaps," Rion replied, "I was never meant to walk those paths at all."
Elder Lysias cleared his throat with the delicate sound of someone accustomed to academic discourse rather than emotional upheaval. His pale eyes fixed on me with the intensity of a scholar examining an unexpected research outcome.
"Kaelen," he said, my name weighted with years of careful education and institutional investment, "your purpose within the order of Aerius has always been clear. The advancement of knowledge through disciplined study, the preservation of wisdom through emotional detachment, the service of truth above personal inclination. This... attachment... runs counter to everything we have tried to teach you."
I met his gaze without flinching, though I could feel sweat gathering at the base of my spine where ceremonial silk clung to heated skin. The scholar in me recognized the logic of his position, understood the careful structure of beliefs that made emotional bonds seem dangerous to intellectual pursuit.
But the man I had become in Rion's arms, under his trusting gaze, through twenty-eight nights of discovering what it meant to love and be lovedcompletely—that man had learned truths that no amount of scholarly detachment could equal.
"Then perhaps," I said, echoing Rion's words while my eyes remained fixed on his beloved face, "it is time for me to find another order entirely. My purpose is clear, even if it does not align with your expectations."
The chamber fell into silence so complete I could hear the distant sound of temple bells calling the faithful to morning prayer. Dawn light had begun to filter through the crystal skylights, painting everything in shades of gold and rose that transformed the formal space into something magical.
Priest Myris studied us both with eyes that seemed to hold depths beyond his apparent years. When he finally spoke, his voice carried the gentle authority of someone who had presided over countless ceremonies, who had witnessed the full spectrum of human choice and consequence.
"The bond between you," he said slowly, "was forged in sacred fire. It has been tested through time, strengthened through trial, and now proven through the greatest test of all—the willingness to sacrifice everything else for its preservation."
He moved to the altar where ceremonial wine waited in its crystal vessel, lifting the cup with hands that remained steady despite the unprecedented nature of what was unfolding.
"Such bonds are rare," he continued, offering the wine first to Rion and then to me. "Rarer still are the souls brave enough to claim them when duty demandssurrender. The gods favor courage above compliance, truth above tradition."
