Clyde inclined his head. Not a bow. Just acknowledgement. His expression was carved from stone.
Aerion stepped closer, tilting his chin, the violet robe whispering against the floor. The cruel glimmer in his deep blue eyes sharpened, brittle as glass. “You know,” he said, each word slow and deliberate, “if a hunter’s hound were wounded, it would be taken out back and put to death. An injured dog is no use to its master.”
The words lashed in the still air. Aerion savoured them, waited for the sting. Expected a flinch. A shadow of shame. Something.
But Clyde only looked at him. Grey eyes steady, storm-still. His voice was low, even, the edge of steel beneath it. “It’s good, then, that you’ve never been one for hunting.”
The retort slid beneath Aerion’s skin like a hidden blade. His lips parted, but no clever cruelty came to him. The silence stretched between them, taut and dangerous, humming like a bowstring pulled to breaking.
Aerion’s pulse thudded faster, traitorous. He broke it with a scoff, sharp and brittle, turning on his heel. His robe flared behind him, violet velvet catching the dawn light.
“Arrogant dog,” he muttered, loud enough to be heard. “One day that tongue will hang you.”
His footsteps rang against the stone, swift and biting. But though he did not look back, he felt it: the presence trailing behind him. Silent. Steady. Unyielding.
As if no wound, no insult, no venom could drive Clyde away.
And it infuriated him.
The great hall had not yet regained its old rhythm. Where once laughter had risen like a tide, now the nobles spoke in softer tones, glances darting like minnows through dark water. The marble floor still bore faint stains, scrubbed and scrubbed yet not entirely erased.
When Aerion entered, the murmurs sharpened, as though the room itself inhaled.
He had dressed not in mourning black nor in the jewel-toned extravagance that had made his name, but in sapphire trimmed with silver, the cut sharp as a blade, the collar plunging to the hollow of his chest. Jewels glittered at his fingers, though fewer than usual, chosen with precision rather than excess. His hair spilled golden and gleaming, framing a smile as bright and false as sunlight off glass.
He descended the dais steps as if nothing had happened. As if a blade had not nearly found his heart. As if his knight had not bled to keep him alive.
“Good morning, my lords,” Aerion purred, lifting a goblet from a servant’s tray without asking. “Do forgive me for missing our council yesterday. I was—how shall I put it—indisposed.”
A ripple of uneasy laughter swept the chamber. Some forced, some genuine. Aerion’s smirk cut through it, sharp enough to sting.
But the courtiers’ eyes slid past him. To the figure at his back.
Clyde.
Silent. Unmoving. His uniform plain, the bandages beneath invisible save for the stiff set of his shoulders. He stood with one hand braced casually against the hilt of his sword, his grey eyes scanning the hall, the crowd, every shadow.
Whispers sparked like kindling.
“That’s him—the Hound.”
“Bled like a sacrificial lamb—”
“Still standing?”
Aerion heard it all. He felt the weight of their stares—less on him, more on the man behind him. Fury flared, bright and brittle, though his smile did not falter.
He raised his goblet, tilting it toward Clyde in mock salute. “My shadow, ever loyal,” he drawled. “Try not to frighten them, Hound. They’re delicate things, these nobles.”
Another nervous ripple of laughter. Clyde said nothing. His gaze did not waver from the hall.
Aerion’s smile sharpened, a blade disguised as charm. “Well then,” he said, sweeping into the heart of the chamber with his robe trailing like a banner, “shall we begin our dreary duties before someone faints from anticipation?”
The nobles bent their heads, quills scratching, words tumbling over each other in eagerness to please.
But Aerion felt it—that pull behind him. Steady. Relentless. His court watched for cracks in him, weakness in his smile. Andyet, in the corner of his eye, he saw only Clyde: silent as ever, but unmovable.
The ball had shifted something.
