“You should lie down,” Renn said. His voice cracked, still pitched too high for war.
“I’ve stood through worse,” Clyde muttered, but he let the boy press him onto the crate beside the cot. His body sagged heavier than he meant.
Renn’s fingers were careful as he unwound the bloody makeshift bandage and replaced it with clean cloth. His touchwas clumsy, but his care was undeniable—gentle where the battlefield had been brutal.
Clyde studied him in silence. The boy’s face was raw with youth, no more than twenty at most. Too young for this. Yet Clyde had stood at fifteen, armour too large, sword too heavy, fighting for men who forgot his name the moment he bled.
Cruel, he thought, to send boys to fight old men’s wars. Crueller still to see their hands tremble, not from fear of death, but from the effort to keep another alive.
“You’ll live,” Renn said softly, tying the knot at Clyde’s throat with surprising neatness. His hands lingered, calloused but warm, steady on Clyde’s shoulders. His eyes lifted, grey-brown and glistening, searching Clyde’s face.
It was then Clyde realized. The boy looked at him not as commander, not even as comrade. But with something softer. Something dangerously close to worship.
Clyde sighed, raising one scarred hand. He meant only to ease the boy’s trembling, to offer some shred of comfort. He patted Renn’s head as one might calm a restless hound.
But Renn caught his hand, turned it, and pressed a kiss into his palm.
The intimacy of it struck like a blade. Too soft. Too close. Too much.
Clyde pulled back sharply. His chair scraped against the ground. His breath came hard, uneven.
Renn froze, stricken. His face crumpled as though he’d just realized what he’d done. He stammered something—half an apology, half a sob—and fled, the tent flap snapping behind him in the cold wind.
Silence pressed in. Only the lantern crackled.
Clyde sat for a long moment, hand still tingling with the ghost of the kiss. He dragged it across his face, shame burning deep.He had no space for this. No room for anyone else. His oath, his thoughts, his heart—they were already bound.
He reached for parchment.
His hand still shook, but he steadied it against the desk. Ink pooled, then scratched slow into words.
A,
An arrow kissed me today. Too close. The healers call me lucky. I do not feel it.
I thought of you when it cut me. Red suits you more than it does me.
I won’t pretend the days are kind. But I am still here. Still writing. Still yours, if you’ll have me.
Do you still walk the halls at night? Do the roses still grow wild without me?
The snow here bites. But I find myself waiting for your words to warm me.
—C
He folded it, sealed it with black wax, and tied it to a hawk’s leg with care. The bird ruffled its feathers, restless, then vanished into the storm.
When the tent fell silent again, Clyde sat back, staring at the canvas walls, waiting.
He wondered when—if—Aerion’s voice would return to him on paper. And whether he could endure the silence until it did.
The hawk arrived at dawn.
Aerion woke to the sound of wings beating against the stone sill, the bird fierce and ragged from flight, feathers rimmed in frost. His heart lurched before he even touched the parchment tied to its leg.
The seal was black, the wax cracked. The handwriting was Clyde’s; rough, angular, nothing elegant, but it hit Aerion harder than any poem. He tore it open with trembling fingers.
He read it once.
