A beat. Then Clyde nodded. “Pick it up.”
They went again. And again. By the third bout, both were sweating despite the cold, Renn’s grin wider than before, his breath coming in quick bursts that turned to steam between them. When Clyde finally called a halt, the boy was grinning like he’d won.
Marreck tossed Renn a flask. “Not bad for someone who still has peach fuzz.”
“Thank you, sir,” Renn panted. He turned to Clyde, earnest as sunrise. “If I ever fight half as well as you, I’ll die happy.”
Clyde busied himself with retying his gauntlet. Compliments were harder to parry than blades. “Don’t aim to die happy,” he said. “Aim to live long enough to regret it.”
The other knights laughed, but Renn didn’t. He just looked at Clyde with a strange, unguarded light in his eyes; something deeper than admiration that unsettled Clyde. Was this what Aerion saw in his own eyes?
Marreck noticed. Of course he did. “Careful,” he muttered under his breath as they left the ring. “You’ve got the boy half in love with you.”
Clyde shot him a look. “He’s a soldier.”
“So are we,” Marreck said, not unkindly. “Doesn’t mean we stop being human.”
They walked toward the mess tent, boots crunching in the frost. Around them, the camp was stirring to life—men stoking fires, checking gear, cursing the weather. The sky was the colour of pewter. Somewhere far east, a horn sounded a long, low note that trembled on the edge of meaning. It wasn’t a summons yet. Just a reminder that one could come at any time.
Marreck stretched his arms and sighed. “Eat now while you can. Might be the last quiet meal before the thaw.”
“Optimist,” Clyde said dryly.
“Realist,” Marreck countered. “You’ll learn to tell the difference once you’ve stopped brooding long enough to laugh.”
Clyde didn’t answer, but the corner of his mouth twitched. That was enough for Marreck.
Later, when the camp had gone quiet again, Clyde sat outside his tent, journal entry half-written, candle guttering in the wind. The sounds of laughter still carried faintly from the other knights—Marreck’s deep rumble, Renn’s bright one tangled among them. For once, it didn’t grate.
He looked down at the page.
They trust me more than I trust myself,he wrote.And I don’t know if that makes me lucky or dangerous.
He hesitated, then added, almost an afterthought:
Marreck still makes me laugh. The boy, Renn, reminds me of what it felt like to believe in things. I fear for them both.
He set down the quill, blew out the candle, and let the dark settle around him like a cloak.
Two days later, the road unspooled before them like a dull ribbon—mud, frost, and the faint sheen of thawing snow. The army moved slow but steady, a hundred hooves drumming the rhythm of patience into the frozen ground. Banners hung limp in the weak sun, the wind too tired to stir them.
Clyde rode at the head of the column, his horse a dark bay, restless beneath the bit. The air smelled of iron and damp leather. Ahead lay the next encampment, closer to the edge of the war that had been threatening to spill over for months.
Marreck rode beside him. His usual grin was absent, though the warmth hadn’t left his voice. “You ever notice, the closer we get to the front, the quieter the men get?”
“They’re conserving what courage they have left,” Clyde said.
Marreck snorted softly. “Or what jokes.”
“Same thing.”
They rode on in silence for a while. The road narrowed, forcing the ranks closer. Behind them, Renn was speaking quietly to another knight, his voice low, eager, full of the energy of someone who hadn’t yet seen what awaited them. Clyde didn’t turn, but he could feel the weight of youthful eagerness pressing forward, unaware of the cliff ahead.
Marreck shifted in his saddle. “You’ve changed,” he said at last.
Clyde kept his eyes forward. “I’ve gotten older.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
