relations

He adores the boy, and the boy adores him, much to the dismay of the boy's mother. She would prefer for her son to avert his eyes at the presence of cultists like Hardin and myself who dare to set foot within her pious household, but she cannot know the strange bond that leads him to instead regard him with silent, sober reverence. Even the boy himself cannot know, for I covered those bonds long ago. Not severed; they shall never be severed - not until the time at which one end disappears.

Bonds severed may find anchor elsewhere, however, and this is why Hardin's eyes linger on the lad. His brother resembled Joshua not a bit, but it makes no different to a heart that has found itself cut loose. Hardin is deluding himself, but there are no grounds for me to rebuke him. He has offered me much. If our circumstances were more conventional, as he wishes they were, he would have offered me more - a ring, his hand. In his heart, he has offered me the equivalent.

His soul echoes back that which cannot be. I cannot tell him in truth that Joshua is not his brother, for the bonds in the boy's blood and the man's heart proclaim that he is.