Still no reply.
“Do you speak,” Aerion prodded, his tone a velvet barb, “or is growling your only tongue?”
Clyde rose, boots striking the marble in steady rhythm. He bowed once, short, sharp, nothing ornamental in the gesture. “Sir Clyde of Blackholt. At your service, my lord.”
Aerion arched one perfect brow. “Charmed.”
Clyde straightened. Silent again.
Aerion’s gaze roamed him shamelessly: the scuffed armour, the calloused hands, the breadth of shoulders worn down by burdens heavier than steel. His eyes lingered a beat too long on the mouth, firm and unsmiling, before lifting back to those slate-grey eyes.
“The king sends you to guard me?” Aerion drawled, swirling his wine until it lapped the rim. “What did I do to deserve such an inspiring hound?”
“I go where I’m ordered.”
“And I speak when I’m bored,” Aerion replied. His smirk tilted like a blade, gleaming in the torchlight. “You’ll have to get used to that.”
A beat passed. Clyde’s gaze shifted deliberately to the window, as though to dismiss him entirely. His voice was quiet, almost careless. “I’ve faced worse burdens.”
Aerion blinked.
The words landed with the soft thud of a gauntlet. Not shouted, not sharp, just laid on the floor between them, insolent in their simplicity.
His jaw tightened, his eyes narrowing, catching the light like glass knives. How dare this man—this slab of stone, dressed in scars and silence—speak of him as if he were an inconvenience.
But Clyde was already turning away, his gaze moving with soldier’s instinct: measuring walls, counting doors, noting every exit. Not in deference. Not in curiosity. In duty.
Aerion tipped his goblet again. The wine slipped golden around its rim. He smiled, but the smile was all teeth—sharp, dangerous, and hungry for the game that had just begun.
“Well,” he murmured, voice rich as velvet and just as deadly, “this should be fun.”
The next morning, pale light poured through the arched windows of Aerion’s solar, painting the chamber in soft gold. The air smelled of rose oil and spiced resin from the brazier, but beneath it lingered something harsher—the faint tang of steel and leather, clinging to the man posted at the door.
Sir Clyde had not moved since dawn. He stood as though carved from the very stone of the keep, boots planted, hands folded behind his back, every line of his body proclaiming endurance. He did not glance at the servants who flitted in and out. He did not blink when the handmaidens laid out Aerion’s wardrobe.
Aerion, meanwhile, stretched across the chaise like a cat in sun, his robe of thin silk slipping down one shoulder. He rose with theatrical languor, letting the fabric fall into a careless heap on the floor. “If you must haunt the corners like a gargoyle,” he drawled, “at least do it with flair. You’re depressing the curtains.”
Clyde said nothing. He kept his eyes forward—except when he didn’t.
Aerion, fastening the first clasp of his emerald doublet, felt it: a weight pressing down on his back. He turned, catching Clyde’s eyes on him, just for a moment too long.
It was not hunger in the knight’s stare.
Disdain.
Cold, measured, the look of a man assessing a battlefield and finding the commander unfit to lead. Clyde’s gaze flicked away too late, snapping to the window with the stiff precision of discipline.
Aerion froze, his fingers lingering on the clasp. A flush of heat climbed his neck, not shame, never that, but something raw and stinging.
“Oh,” he said at last, his voice cutting through the silence like a blade unsheathed. “So, the Hound does have thoughts. Do you find me amusing, Sir Clyde? A painted peacock unworthy of your time?”
Clyde did not answer. His jaw tightened.
Aerion stalked closer, each step deliberate, his smile sharp as glass. “You dare watch me like some bored stablehand? I should have you dragged out and whipped for insolence.”
Still nothing. Clyde’s eyes stayed fixed ahead, cold, impassive, as though Aerion’s words were arrows broken on stone.
That only stoked the fire. Aerion leaned in, lowering his voice to a venomous whisper. “You are sworn to guard me, not to judge me. Remember your place, Sir Hound.”
