Clyde said nothing. He only stood, slow and deliberate, and began to check his gear.
Aerion’s smirk lingered, but inside, his chest tightened.
They left the cabin without a word.
The storm had scoured the forest clean; every branch dripped silver, every leaf gleamed as though newly made. Mist clung low over the ground, curling around the horses’ legs as they stamped impatiently in the clearing. The air was sharp and cold, the kind that bit at lungs and made each breath feel too loud.
Clyde moved with his usual precision, tightening saddles and reins, checking buckles twice before swinging into his saddle with a wince he didn’t voice. His cloak across his shoulders again, as though the night had never happened.
Aerion mounted more languidly, violet robes sweeping as he swung astride. He looked every inch the dishevelled lord: hair loose, collar askew, his rings catching weak sunlight. But his eyeswere sharper than they had been the night before, awake and restless.
They set off at a slow trot, hooves squelching against the wet earth. The silence rode with them.
Aerion’s gaze flicked toward Clyde more than once, though he disguised it by turning his head toward the trees, the sky, the winding trail ahead. He wanted to speak—some clever barb, some careless quip—but every word he conjured felt too brittle, too transparent.
Finally, he tried. “If anyone at court asks, we’ll tell them I insisted on inspecting the forest paths.” His tone was airy, dismissive. “Better than admitting we spent the night in a hovel smelling of damp straw and regret.”
Clyde didn’t turn his head. “No one will ask.”
Aerion scoffed, the sound sharp as the snap of a twig. “They always ask. What I eat. What I wear. Who I—” He broke off, biting the word before it could leave him. He forced a smirk instead. “Who Imockedlast.”
“Then tell them that,” Clyde said simply.
Aerion’s fingers tightened on his reins. Gods, the man was infuriating. Always still, always steady, as if the storm—last night’s storm, any storm—could never reach him.
And yet…
When thunder had shaken the cabin walls, when the roof had groaned and the fire guttered, Aerion hadn’t thought of his father, or the keep, or the courtiers waiting to pick apart his every move. He’d thought of Clyde. Of grey eyes softening, just for a breath, like iron bending under impossible heat.
He shook the thought off like rain.
The keep’s towers soon rose in the distance, black stone jutting from the mist. Courtiers would be waiting. Whispers would follow. The world would resume.
Aerion straightened in the saddle, slipping his mask back on like a second skin. He tossed his hair back, adjusted his robe, set his smirk firmly in place.
But when he glanced at Clyde again, just once, the mask cracked at the edges.
The silence between them hadn’t broken.
It had only grown heavier.
By the time they rode beneath Valemont’s iron gates, the keep was already stirring. Servants hurried across the courtyard with baskets of bread and bolts of cloth, guards barked orders from the walls, and above it all, the towers loomed dark and slick from rain.
They hadn’t even dismounted before the whispers began.
“My lord Aerion—”
“Where had he gone?”
“Overnight, no less—scandalous—”
“Not alone. The Hound was with him.”
Aerion felt the eyes like nettles against his skin. Nobles at the steps, chamberlains in the archways, servants with downcast gazes, all of them watching, guessing, filling the silence with their own stories.
Perfect.
He smiled, broad and careless, slipping from his saddle with a flourish of violet robes. “Fear not, darlings,” he announced, loud enough to echo across the courtyard. “I was not lost to the storm. I merely decided the Archduke’s son should test the forest paths personally. Wouldn’t want our noble carriages to rattle too much on their way to the next feast, would we?”
