Marreck’s gaze flicked sideways, watching Clyde over the rim of his cup. “Didn’t know you were such a philosopher’s muse.”
“Quiet,” Clyde murmured, though his voice lacked any real command.
“Tell you what,” one of the others was saying now. “When this is over, we’ll all drink to him. To the Commander of the Western Flank—”
Renn interrupted, the words tumbling out before he seemed to think. “He hates that title. You can tell. But that’s what makes him—” he faltered, searching for the word, “—different. He doesn’t lead for glory. He just… does it because no one else will.”
There was an awkward pause, a few knowing chuckles, the scrape of spoons against bowls. But Renn’s tone had gone quiet again, softer now:
“I think he’d rather die than disappoint the men who follow him.”
Marreck exhaled slowly, leaning back on his crate. “Gods,” he muttered. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was talking about a saint.”
Clyde’s mouth tightened. “He’s talking about a fool.”
Marreck passed the wineskin again. “Then he’s in good company.”
Clyde didn’t smile. He only took another drink, the firelight glinting off the edge of his armour. The wine was nearly gone by the time the younger knights’ laughter faded into song—a rough, uneven thing that tried to sound brave.
When the voices had softened to murmurs and the fires burned low, Marreck spoke again. “He’ll break his heart on you one day.”
Clyde’s head turned. “Renn?”
“Aye. He’s young. He’ll learn that admiration cuts just as deep as a blade.”
Clyde stared into the fire. The flames twisted, orange and gold, eating through the last scraps of kindling. “He deserves better things to break it on,” he said at last.
Marreck grunted. “Don’t we all.”
They sat there until the fire sank into embers and the night folded around them. The stars, when they came, were dim and far away—cold witnesses to a world already bracing for war.
Clyde rose first, pulling his cloak tight. “Get some sleep,” he said.
Marreck nodded, though his eyes were still on the coals. “Aye, Commander,” the teasing tone returned to him.
Clyde hesitated, as if to say something more, but in the end, he only clasped Marreck’s shoulder once before walking away into the dark.
Chapter eleven
A Flower Pressed in Blood
The first week, Aerion waited with amusement.
Or at least, that was the mask he wore.
He checked the doors more often than he’d admit, striding across the marble floors as though on his way to some important task only to pause, pivot, and linger by the tall windows overlooking the courtyard. From there he could watch the gates where couriers rode in and out, their saddlebags stuffed with letters and decrees. He told himself he was admiring the roses that lined the walkway, the symmetry of the paving stones, the polish of the armour on the guards below.
But always—always—his gaze flicked to the gates.
No letter.
No seal.
No Clyde.
He told himself it didn’t matter. He told himself the Hound was too stubborn to write so soon.
By the third day, he had turned it into a joke. “Perhaps he’s forgotten how to hold a quill,” he remarked to a pair of handmaidens as they laced him into a new doublet. “Or perhaps he tried to write and grew so bored of his own silence that he fell asleep over the parchment. That would be like him.” The women giggled dutifully, though their eyes slid to one another when he turned away.
