Finally, he turned away, his shoulders drawn tight, his voice brittle as spun glass. “Go, then. Leave me to my empty bed.”
Clyde lingered a breath too long in the doorway. Then he bowed once, sharp and final, and slipped into the dark.
The chamber seemed larger without him. Colder.
Aerion pressed trembling fingers to his lips, tasting the bitter ghost of a kiss that had never been.
The four days that followed bled into each other like ink on wet parchment. The keep became a barracks, halls echoing with the sound of mustering knights, stable boys running, bannersunfurling in cold winds. The air smelled of oiled leather and sharpened steel.
And Aerion raged.
He raged at stewards for miscounting barrels. At handmaidens for lacing his doublet too tight. At the steward of the eastern fief for daring to suggest more men be sent. His barbs turned cruel, his temper shorter than ever. Words that once carried wit now carried venom. He snapped, he mocked, he laughed too loud at things not funny at all.
Clyde stood by through all of it. Silent, patient, steady. He knew the truth: that this was no lord’s authority, no heir’s arrogance. It was fear, gnawing him hollow. It was grief for something not yet lost.
By the fourth night, the eve of departure, Aerion was drunk. He staggered in his chambers, robe half-unbuttoned, hair mussed, a goblet of red sloshing as he waved it wildly.
“You’re leaving me,” he slurred, eyes glassy with fury. “Leaving me like everyone else. My father, my courtiers, even the gods in their bloody frescoes—they’ve all abandoned me. And now you—”
Clyde stood by the hearth, arms folded, watching. Quiet.
Aerion stumbled closer, thrusting the goblet aside so wine splattered crimson across the floor. “Say something,” he demanded. “Anything. Prove you’re not made of stone. Gods, Clyde, do you evenfeel?”
When Clyde didn’t answer, Aerion’s hand snapped out before he could stop himself. The slap cracked through the chamber, ringing louder than thunder.
Silence followed, thick and absolute.
Aerion froze, hand still raised, lips parted as though even he couldn’t believe it. His heart hammered against his ribs, breath sharp.
Clyde’s hand moved fast, catching Aerion’s wrist in an iron grip. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t snarl. He only held him there, steady, unyielding, until the tremor in Aerion’s fingers betrayed him.
Their eyes locked—deep blue and storm-grey.
Then Clyde pulled him forward and kissed him.
It was not soft. It was not gentle. It was a clash, a collision, all the tension of weeks breaking like a dam. His mouth was firm, unforgiving, his grip unrelenting on Aerion’s wrist as though he feared letting go would undo it all.
Aerion gasped into it, shocked, wine-sweet breath spilling against Clyde’s lips. His body arched closer before his mind could think better of it, every nerve alight.
And just as abruptly, Clyde released him.
The kiss ended, but the echo of it throbbed between them, louder than the storm that had once caged them in the cabin.
Clyde’s voice was low, ragged. “That’s all I can give you.”
Aerion stood trembling, breath shuddering, lips still burning.
Clyde’s words—That’s all I can give you—hung in the chamber like smoke after a fire, suffocating, unbearable.
“That’s not enough,” Aerion whispered, his voice cracked, almost boyish in its ache. “Not after this. Not when you’ve already—” His throat closed around the rest.
He lunged.
Aerion’s mouth crashed into Clyde’s again, desperate, wild, tasting of wine and fury. His hands gripped at steel and leather, clawing at buckles, pulling at the rough layers that separated him from the man beneath. Clyde’s first instinct was resistance, his body stiff, his hand gripping Aerion’s shoulder as if to hold him back. But Aerion’s moan—ragged, broken,pleading—dissolved the last of it.
With a low growl, Clyde shoved him backward, hard enough that Aerion stumbled and hit the bedpost. The goblet clatteredto the floor, spilling the last of its red across the stone like blood. Before Aerion could speak, Clyde was on him, one hand seizing his jaw, the other pinning his chest to the carved wood, kissing him so fiercely Aerion thought his lips might bruise.
Aerion gasped into the kiss, fingers tangling in Clyde’s hair, pulling hard enough to hurt. “Yes—” he panted between kisses, “—yes—”
