Aerion tilted his head back against the chair, watching the firelight play across Clyde’s face, angular, stern, streaked with rain. Scar tissue caught the light like pale silver, glistening beneath damp skin.
The thunder cracked again. Aerion flinched, though he tried to mask it with a smirk. “I’ve always hated storms,” he admitted, voice lazy, almost careless. “When I was a child, I used to imagine lightning as the anger of long-dead kings clawing their way out of the clouds.” He swirled an invisible goblet in his hand. “Now, as a man, I drink.”
Clyde’s eyes flicked toward him. Just once. Steady. Unmoved. But not unhearing.
Aerion chuckled, softer this time, as if the storm outside had stolen some of the bite from his laughter. The fire popped, shadows stretching across the walls. For once, the castle and its courtiers, its endless performance, were far away.
It was only him.
And the hound who had bled for him.
The storm battered the cabin as if it meant to tear it apart. Rain lashed the shutters, wind howled through the chinks in the roof, and thunder cracked so close it rattled the walls.
The fire Clyde had coaxed to life fought valiantly against the damp, its glow throwing long, flickering shadows across the rough-hewn walls. Aerion dug through the cabinets, seeking out liquor he knew must be somewhere in the cabin, his soaked tunic clinging like a second skin.
He scowled, tugging at the fabric. “Gods, I might as well be naked. This thing’s useless. Ah! At last!” He pulled out a bottle of dark liquid.
Clyde didn’t answer. He stripped off his own sodden cloak with one wince of pain, laying it near the fire. His movements were slow, deliberate, each one betraying the strain of his wound, but he made no complaint.
Aerion watched him, irritation and something else twisting together in his chest. “You’ll catch a fever,” he said sharply, though it came out sounding more like concern than mockery. He hated that. “Take that shirt off before it freezes to you.”
Clyde glanced at him once, unreadable, before pulling the linen over his head. The firelight caught on the ridges and valleys of scars across his chest, the still-angry wound stitched at his side. A map of battles fought and survived, each mark a story Aerion didn’t know.
Aerion swallowed, looking away too quickly. He tugged at his own tunic again, then stood abruptly, yanking it over his head in one sharp motion. The wet fabric slapped against the floor. His hair clung to his temples, drops sliding down the long line of his throat.
“There,” he said, voice too flippant, too loud in the small space. “Now we’re both half-drowned and indecent. A fitting pair.”
He tossed the tunic toward the fire, spreading it across a chair to dry. Then he lowered himself onto the cot with exaggerated carelessness, one knee bent, his bare chest gleaming in the firelight.
The silence thickened. Outside, the storm screamed. Inside, only the fire popped.
Clyde crouched by the flames, stretching his hand toward the warmth. His profile was cut sharp by shadow—jaw, cheekbone, the line of his throat. His grey eyes stayed fixed on the fire, though Aerion felt the weight of his presence, heavy as a hand pressed against his chest.
“You really won’t say anything, will you?” Aerion asked finally, his voice dropping low. “Not about the council, not about theball, not even about this.” He gestured vaguely between them, the closeness, the heat, the way their damp skin steamed in the firelight.
Clyde’s answer came after a long pause, quiet as the storm was loud. “There’s nothing to say.”
Aerion laughed once, bitter and bright. “Gods, you are maddening.” He leaned back on the cot; arm draped across the pillow. “Do you know what silence does to a man? It makes him hear things that aren’t there. Feel things he shouldn’t.”
The fire hissed, swallowing the words.
Clyde didn’t move. Didn’t speak. But his eyes lifted from the flames, meeting Aerion’s across the small, flickering room.
For a heartbeat, it was not silence at all. It was a bowstring, drawn taut.
And Aerion wasn’t sure who would break first.
Clyde sat by the hearth, sharpening his blade.
Of course.
The fire was little more than a stubborn glow, its smoke curling up through a crooked chimney. Rain hissed where it slipped through cracks in the warped roof, pooling on the uneven stone floor. The cabin smelled of damp wood, mildew, and disuse.
Aerion blinked at him from the chair, last drops of water still dripping from his hair and rolling down his chest. “Do you ever sleep,” he drawled, “or are you part of the furniture now?”
Clyde didn’t look up, the whetstone rasping over steel in slow, even strokes. “Resting.”
“You’re holding a sword.”
