The knight dropped to one knee, blood blooming dark across the fabric at his side, wetness staining through the linen. One hand braced against the floor, the other still clutching his sword, though it trembled with the effort.
And even now, bleeding, bent, the world shattering around them, Clyde was watching him.
Always watching him.
“You—stupid—fucking—dog!” Aerion fell beside him, his voice cracking, panic tearing through the mask of his composure. His hands pressed frantically to Clyde’s chest, useless against the heat and blood spilling between his fingers. “Why didn’t you move?”
Clyde’s mouth twisted, more grimace than smile. His voice was ragged, broken with pain, but iron still underlined it.
“I did,” he muttered. His eyes did not leave Aerion’s. “Toward you.”
Then his strength gave way.
Clyde collapsed, sword clattering against the marble.
Aerion caught him before he hit the ground.
The ballroom was a hive of shrieking panic, courtiers stumbling over silks and goblets as guards bellowed orders and musicians fled their posts. The chandeliers still blazed overhead, indifferent to the ruin below, spilling golden light over overturned platters and spilled wine that looked too much like blood.
Aerion never left his side.
Not when the first servants came rushing with armfuls of towels, their faces pale, their hands shaking as they tried to press cloth against Clyde’s wound. Aerion snarled at them to move faster, to hold tighter, then shoved them aside altogether when their hands slipped.
Not when the court healer arrived, her satchel clattering to the floor as she dropped to her knees beside them. She muttered incantations under her breath; fingers slick with blood as she pressed herbs and poultices to the gash. Aerion’s hands never left Clyde’s chest, clutching at him as if sheer will could knit him together again.
Not even when his own body betrayed him, knees screaming from kneeling so long on cold marble, muscles trembling beneath the weight of panic. He didn’t shift. He didn’t rise. He only leaned closer.
Aerion’s cheek was streaked with wine and blood, his golden hair fallen wild across his face, his jewelled rings sticky as he clutched at Clyde’s doublet. The mask of venom and poise was gone. In its place was something raw. Terrified.
“You’re not allowed to die, you bastard,” he whispered hoarsely, over and over, the words tumbling from his lips like prayers to gods he had never believed in. His voice cracked on them, thinned to threads. “Not like this. Not for me. Do you hear me? You don’t get to leave me.”
And for once, the words weren’t laced with mockery or malice.
They were raw.
Afraid.
Human.
The world around him swirled in chaos—guards still shouting, the Archduke’s voice bellowing from across the chamber, courtiers weeping behind fans and sleeves—but Aerion heard none of it. All he heard was Clyde’s laboured breathing, shallow and uneven, each inhale a battle against the blood soaking the floor.
When Clyde’s eyes fluttered, Aerion’s hands tightened, his breath catching. “Stay with me,” he begged, his voice breaking. “Stay.”
And in that moment, heir and hound, lord and knight, were nothing but two men on the floor, bound together by blood, terror, and the shattering realization that one could not bear to lose the other.
Chapter four
A Knight's Oath
The keep fell into hush in the days after the ball. The chandeliers remained unlit, their crystals dull with dust. No lutes strummed in the galleries, no harps plucked airy notes to fill the halls. Even the nobles’ laughter dulled, thinning into whispers behind jewelled hands. Their attention no longer clung to Aerion’s scandalous gowns or barbed remarks, but to the shadow of a knight who had bled on marble to keep the peacock prince alive.
Aerion had not left his chambers for two days. Not out of grief—he told himself—but out of irritation. His schedule had beendisrupted, his routine shattered. He had missed a luncheon, a fitting, a dozen chances to parade himself through the market. His gowns—new, tailored, daring—lay folded in chests, unworn.
He told himself it was this that set his teeth on edge.
But still…
The bloodied sash lay across his lap as he read petitions, its once-black fabric ruined by rust-red stains. He told himself it was simply a distraction, a thing to fiddle with while he skimmed dull demands for more grain, fewer taxes, new roads. And yet his fingers tightened in the cloth, worrying the torn threads until his knuckles whitened.
