In Chap­ter Fif­teen, Bran­thor reflects on his feel­ings for Teal as he watch­es her sleep. He strug­gles inter­nal­ly with the real­i­ty that Teal is now his bride, which he had pre­vi­ous­ly denied want­i­ng. Despite plan­ning to return her to the Tem­ple, he real­izes he can­not let her go. She is his, des­tined to be with him, and this accep­tance brings a sense of fate into their rela­tion­ship.

As dawn approach­es, Bran­thor care­ful­ly ris­es with­out wak­ing Teal and pre­pares break­fast. He notices the mar­riage con­tract left by his broth­er, Kairos, and con­sid­ers sign­ing it in Teal’s pres­ence to mark their com­mit­ment more per­son­al­ly. Teal soon awakes, appear­ing a bit unsteady, which leads to a light-heart­ed exchange about the effects of the oil they had used. Bran­thor presents the con­tract to her, seek­ing to make their mar­riage offi­cial.

Teal is ecsta­t­ic at the notion. How­ev­er, as Bran­thor express­es his intent to sign the con­tract, he inad­ver­tent­ly brings up his fears about her motives, ques­tion­ing whether she had phys­i­cal inti­ma­cy with him to manip­u­late his deci­sion. Teal, shocked and offend­ed by the accu­sa­tion, insists that her feel­ings were gen­uine and that she had act­ed out of love, not manip­u­la­tion. This con­fronta­tion esca­lates as Bran­thor’s accu­sa­tions push Teal away from him emo­tion­al­ly.

Teal, feel­ing hurt and dis­re­spect­ed, storms out of Bran­thor’s home, leav­ing Bran­thor in a state of con­fu­sion and regret. He real­izes that his dis­trust has dri­ven her away and that he must apol­o­gize sin­cere­ly. Bran­thor vows to give her space but under­stands that he must con­front his inse­cu­ri­ties to mend their rela­tion­ship. His inner tur­moil height­ens as he con­fronts the pos­si­bil­i­ty of los­ing Teal for­ev­er, real­iz­ing his love for her is unwa­ver­ing, despite the ear­li­er doubts. The chap­ter ends with Bran­thor reflect­ing on his mis­take and prepar­ing him­self to gen­uine­ly apol­o­gize when Teal returns.