The handmaidens shrank into the corners of the room, exchanging nervous glances.
Aerion lingered a heartbeat longer, then turned away with a sudden laugh, light and cruel. He lifted the goblet of honeyed wine from his dressing table and tipped it, letting the gold liquid catch the sun.
“Ah well,” he murmured, almost to himself, “every dog growls. It’s when they bite that things get interesting.”
The breakfast chamber smelled faintly of smoke and damp stone despite the platters of steaming bread, honeyed figs, and roasted quail laid across the long table. Tapestries muffled the draft, but nothing softened the cough that rattled Archduke Valemont’s chest as he sat propped among cushions at the table’s head. His skin hung loose on his bones, his eyes sunken but still sharp, still judging.
Aerion sauntered in late, as always, his doublet catching the morning light. He dropped into the chair opposite his father with a feline ease, lifting a fig between jewelled fingers.
“You look ghastly, Father,” Aerion said cheerfully. “I’d almost mistake you for a ghost. Shall I call for a priest, or would you prefer a painter to immortalize your decline?”
The Archduke’s gaze was ice. “Your tongue will rot you before age does, boy.”
Aerion only smiled, sinking his teeth into the fig, letting its juice run down his fingers.
From his post near the wall, Clyde stood motionless, helm tucked under one arm. He watched, but gave no sign of thought, his face unreadable.
The Archduke coughed again, the sound tearing through his frame. When he spoke, his voice was low but unyielding. “You waste your days with wine and preening. It is past time you married.”
Aerion arched a brow. “Married? To whom? One of the chambermaids? Or perhaps a baron’s daughter who thinks embroidery a great accomplishment?”
His father’s jaw clenched. “To anyone who can give you heirs. Your line is fragile enough without your vanity crippling it.”
Aerion laughed, a sharp sound that rang too loudly in the chamber. “Fragile? I’m the most durable thing this family has left. You cough and wheeze, and my brothers rot in the ground,but here I am, radiant as ever. What need have I for an heir when I’ve not yet lived my own life?”
The Archduke leaned forward, his eyes burning through their hollow sockets. “You think life is yours alone to live? You are a Valemont. You are duty, not indulgence.”
For the first time, Aerion’s smile slipped, faintly, though he masked it with a swallow of wine. “I’ve never considered settling down,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “And I don’t plan to start now.”
The silence after was brittle. The Archduke’s hand trembled where it gripped his goblet, but he said nothing more.
Clyde shifted only enough to adjust the weight of his sword against his hip. His gaze flicked from father to son and back again, his expression a shield of iron. He offered no word, no counsel.
But he saw everything.
Several weeks passed, and with them Aerion’s sharpest barbs dulled. His distrust of the knight, his dislike of the silent sentinel who shadowed his every step, had settled into something quieter: indifference.
If Clyde was a hound, then Aerion had grown used to the leash trailing somewhere behind him. He did not bother tugging it anymore.
Clyde followed wherever duty carried him, though he was seldom acknowledged. When Aerion poured over grain ledgers with the steward, half-dozing through talk of harvests and tariffs, Clyde stood in the corner, silent, eyes not on the parchment but on Aerion himself. He watched the subtle flickers of the young lord’s face; how boredom might sharpen in aninstant into a blade of calculation, how he tossed aside ledgers like toys until suddenly, he spoke with frightening precision, cutting through the steward’s droning with a solution no one else had seen.
When Aerion entered the market quarter, he became another man entirely. His shoulders loosened, his step grew light, and his voice carried easily above the noise of hawkers and cart wheels. Laughter painted him like sunlight on water, gestures wide and expansive, drawing eyes whether he wanted them or not.
He made a show of himself at every turn: plucking rosemary from the butcher’s counter and pressing it to his chest with mock solemnity. “For me? You shouldn’t have,” he told the butcher’s eldest daughter, who giggled so hard she nearly dropped her knife. He brushed silver into her palm, warm from his touch. “Tell your father I overpaid, won’t you?”
At the vintner’s stall, he leaned close to the man’s niece, sleeves rolled to her elbows, cheeks flushed from crushing grapes. His breath ghosted her ear. “If I drink your uncle’s wine, will it taste of you?” She nearly dropped the ladle, laughter bubbling out of her, and Aerion only smiled, brushing his fingers against her wrist before tossing a coin into the barrel, leaving silver dripping with purple.
But all of that was foreplay compared to the tavern.
He ducked beneath the low beam of the Laughing Pike, the air thick with hops, woodsmoke, and sweat. The barmaid spotted him first; young, freckled, dark hair tied in a kerchief. Her eyes widened, then narrowed, as if she couldn’t decide whether he was trouble or a blessing. Aerion made the decision for her.
“My salvation,” he declared, sweeping into a bow so deep his cape brushed the sticky floorboards. “Bring me your strongest ale, your sweetest smile, and if you have them, your softest secrets.”
She snorted, planting a hand on her hip. “All three cost double.”
Aerion leaned across the counter until they were nearly nose to nose. “Then I’ll pay triple.” He dropped a gold coin with a flourish, loud enough that the nearby sailors turned to gape.
The barmaid laughed despite herself, sliding the coin into her bodice. “You’re dangerous.”
