Aerion stalked across the chamber, robe flaring violet behind him. “You were there,” he pressed. “You heard every droning word, every plea for me to rut myself into a dynasty. And yet you stood silent. Again.”
Clyde’s grey eyes met his. Calm. Unmoving. “It was not my place to speak.”
Aerion scoffed, pacing a circle around him, restless as a caged hawk. “Not your place? Gods, is there anything your placeisbesides looming in corners like a shadow?” He stopped suddenly, turning to face him. “Well? Say it. Do you agree with them?”
Silence.
Aerion’s voice sharpened. “Do you think I should be married off like a prized mare? Do you think I should beget heirs and dance with simpering girls until my knees give out?”
Still nothing. Clyde’s jaw flexed, but his lips did not move.
Aerion’s fists clenched, rings biting into his palms. “You’re infuriating. Do you know that? I demand an answer, and still you—”
At last, Clyde spoke. Quiet. Even. Steady as stone.
“I think,” he said, “you are lord enough to make your own choice. Not theirs. Not mine.”
The words were simple. But they landed like a blade pressed to Aerion’s throat—not piercing, but close enough to feel the edge.
He swallowed. Heat prickled up his neck. “That’s it? No lecture, no judgment, no tedious northern sermon about duty?”
“No.”
Aerion stared at him, breath caught in his chest, furious that he couldn’t read what lay behind those dark eyes. Fury and something else tangled inside him, sharp as glass.
He laughed suddenly, brittle and bright. “Gods, you are impossible. An arrogant dog who thinks silence makes him wise.”
He turned sharply, striding for the door. But at the threshold he hesitated, just a heartbeat, before glancing back.
Clyde was still there, unmoved, unshaken, watching him.
And Aerion hated that the weight of that gaze steadied him more than all the council’s speeches ever could.
That evening, the hall was warm with firelight and chatter, the long tables heavy with roasted pheasant, spiced pears, and wine that flowed too freely. Courtiers laughed in rehearsed tones, their jewelled hands fluttering like birds as they leaned across goblets and platters.
Aerion arrived late, as ever, sweeping in draped in dark silk that caught the glow of every candle. The murmurs that followed him were familiar—scandal, awe, envy, disdain—and he drank them like a draught of wine.
He took his place not beside his ailing father, but among the younger nobles, where the laughter was sharpest and the eyeseager. He played his part flawlessly: lifting a goblet in mock salute, teasing a knight about his waistline, tracing his fingers too boldly along a lady’s wrist.
She giggled, cheeks pink, leaning close enough that her perfume, rosewater and honey, lifted sweet between them. Aerion smiled, slow and wicked, lowering his voice to a murmur meant only for her ear.
“Careful, darling,” he drawled, “the way you look at me, someone might think you’re already planning our vows.”
Gasps and laughter burst around the table. The lady laughed too, though her eyes darted nervously toward her father at the far end. Aerion only grinned wider, basking in the scandal, basking in the noise.
Yet—beneath it, louder than the music, sharper than the laughter—Clyde’s words gnawed at him.
You are lord enough to make your own choice. Not theirs. Not mine.
Aerion tossed back his wine, the sweetness sour on his tongue. He leaned toward another lady, darker-haired, bolder in her gaze. He brushed his knuckles along her jaw, his smile flashing sharp as a blade. “And you, dove? Would you survive me? Or would you faint after the first kiss?”
More laughter. More scandal.
But even as he kissed the air just shy of her lips, even as he let the crowd shriek and titter, Aerion’s eyes flicked to the far side of the hall.
There he was.
Clyde.
