“No,” Aerion bit, voice trembling. “No, I won’t hear it. Not from you.”
The tension thickened until Clyde finally reached across the table. His calloused hand, broad and steady, closed over Aerion’s trembling one. The contact stole Aerion’s breath even as his jaw clenched tighter.
“You’re a lord,” Clyde said softly, eyes steady, voice low with the weight of resignation. “I’m just a knight.”
Aerion laughed once, sharp and ugly. “Justa knight. Gods, you make it sound so simple, so clean. Do you have any idea what you are to me?”
Clyde’s grip tightened, thumb brushing his knuckles with a tenderness that contradicted every word. “I do. Which is why I can’t let you ruin yourself for me.”
“Ruin myself?” Aerion’s voice cracked. “You think marriage to some simpering stranger is salvation? That bedding a warm body chosen for my crown will erase you?”
“You’ll need heirs,” Clyde said, gaze dropping. “Your bloodline matters. More than I do.”
“More thanus?” Aerion demanded.
Clyde lifted his head. His grey eyes met Aerion's blue. He didn’t answer. The silence said enough.
Aerion’s lips trembled, fury giving way to despair. When Clyde leaned across the table and kissed him, Aerion kissed back—not with fire, not with the hunger of the night before, but with sorrow. Their mouths met like two men drowning, knowing neither could pull the other to shore.
When they parted, Aerion whispered, voice raw: “If I must wed, then let them line the suitors to the door. Let them whisper of heirs and alliances until their tongues rot. They will never touch what is mine.”
Clyde’s hand lingered on his, but his voice stayed quiet, steady, unyielding. “One day, they’ll demand more than whispers. And when they do, you’ll have to choose.”
Aerion’s eyes burned, but he didn’t look away. “Then I choose you. I’llalwayschoose you.”
Clyde didn’t answer.
He only pulled Aerion’s hand closer and pressed his lips to the back of it, reverent and sorrowful in equal measure.
Clyde didn’t sleep that night.
He lay rigid on his cot while Aerion sprawled beside him, limbs tangled in the furs, lips parted in that rarest of states—unguarded. His lord’s breaths were slow, even, untroubled, and Clyde listened to each one like it was a blade twisting in his chest.
He knew the truth. Aerion suffered because of him.
Because Clyde had given him something he could not keep. Because he had carved out a place in Aerion’s heart where duty and bloodlines should have lived. Because every kiss, every touch, every whispered “mine” had only tethered him to an impossible choice.
By morning, he had decided.
The lie came to him like armour, hard and cold. A shield he would hold up even if it pierced him through.
When Aerion stirred, Clyde sat him down. He forced his voice steady, shaped each word as if he had practised it in the dark.
“Renn has feelings for me,” he said flatly. “More than feelings. There’s been… closeness. He's… he's spent the night here. In my tent. You shouldn’t be blind to it.”
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
Aerion stared at him, eyes wide, the colour draining from his face like spilled wine sinking into snow. His lips parted, but no words came. Not wit, not venom, not the sharp blade of his tongue that so often cut the court to ribbons.
Only silence.
He stood slowly, stiffly, like a man gut-shot, too shocked to even clutch the wound. His voice, when it came, was a whisper frayed to breaking: “I see.”
Clyde’s breath caught. His mask cracked. He reached for him, panic blooming like fire in his chest. “Aerion—”
But Aerion stepped back, just out of reach.
And his eyes—Gods, his eyes glistened with something Clyde had never seen before. Not anger. Not cruelty. Not even pride.
