That voice, grave as iron, softening only once.
His breath shivered out of him. His fingers, restless, slid lower.
He was already hard.
Already aching.
Alreadygone.
He told himself it was defiance. That if Clyde thought him incapable of want, incapable of seriousness, then he would prove otherwise, even in solitude. He told himself it was mockery, indulgence, nothing more than heat to be burned off like wine.
But when his breath hitched, it was not the faces of a baron’s son or merchant’s daughter that filled his mind. Not the courtiers who begged for his favour.
It was Clyde.
Broad shoulders bent over a blade.
Scars mapping skin like constellations.
That oath, spoken without flourish, lived without fail.
Aerion pressed his lips together; a sound caught in his throat. His body moved with the rhythm of memory; with the ache of a truth he could not name aloud, his own soft hand stroking where he wished a calloused one would.
When release finally broke through him, he bit down hard on his knuckle, silencing the cry before it could escape into the empty chamber. The taste of iron filled his mouth.
He collapsed back against the pillows, chest heaving, damp hair clinging to his temples. The ceiling spun above him, painted cherubs staring down with their eternal, mocking smiles.
Aerion dragged a trembling hand over his face. His lips parted, a whisper escaping like a confession into the dark.
“Dangerous man…”
And still, the silence answered him.
Chapter seven
War Council
Voices threaded the air: the kings envoy’s crisp, the captains’ gravel, the lords’ perfumed mutters. For everyone else the meeting moved with brutal efficiency; lines on a map, dates on a ledger, who would ride and when.
Aerion sat at the head of the table as if it were another prop to be toyed with. His fingers tapped the wood in a rhythm that had nothing to do with the conversation. The envoy’s words blurred, the syllables elastic, stretched thin by the tightness behind Aerion’s ears. He could feel the hum of the room more than hearit now: the tick of a clock somewhere far off, the faint scrape of a quill, the low, constant rasp of a man clearing his throat.
“…five hundred riders, two infantry legions,” the envoy repeated, laying a heavy finger along the spread of parchment. The map smelled faintly of wax and dust; tiny pins glittered where forts had fallen. “Musters at dawn. Depart in—”
Aerion heard the world tilt. The envoy’s voice became water over stone. Faces blurred at the edges. The only clear thing in the room was Clyde—standing, formal, still as iron against the wall. Black cloth, sword at his hip, bandages shadowed beneath his breastplate. The envoy’s hand pointed at him like an accusation: “You are to ride with them. You will command the western flank.”
Heat rose in Aerion’s face, not anger as such, more the acute ache of loss pre-empted. He rose before he could think, more motion than thought, and the word burst out of him sharp and ridiculous. “No.”
Silence snapped the chamber into brittle stillness. Lords leaned forward. Chambers of men waited for the spectacle of a tantrum. The envoy’s expression hardened: “My lord—”
“I said no,” Aerion repeated, his voice beginning to wobble between command and plea. “Sir Clyde is my sworn knight. His duty is to me, not the king’s war. He remains here.”
Clyde’s mouth moved, a sound Aerion could not catch. The room inhaled. Someone smacked a palm against the table. “My lord—” the envoy began again, but Clyde raised a hand, palm open as if to quiet the very air.
Then, an action so simple it broke Aerion’s breath, Clyde turned to him and knelt. One knee kissed stone. Head bowed. The motion carried with it a humility that made the hall tilt.
“I serve you, my lord,” he said. His voice carried, not loud nor performative, but as clear and small as a bell. “And I go because of that.”
Aerion’s heart puked into his throat. The room narrowed to the sound of his own blood. All the orders, the maps, the dates contracted into the single, steady truth of Clyde’s words. He wanted to shout. To demand reasons, to bargain. He wanted anything but this: the man he had claimed as his refusing to be kept.
