He held her for a long time. Long enough for his breathing to steady, for the sobs to fade, leaving only the ache.
At last, he shifted, drawing her gently onto his knee as he reached for parchment. He dipped his quill into ink, though his hand still shook.
Isolde leaned against him, her small hand resting on his arm, watching curiously as he bent to write.
Her presence steadied him.
For the first time in five years, the words did not come like rage.
They came like surrender.
C,
I wanted to burn your words. I wanted to curse your name. Five years of silence, and now you give me sunflowers and honey.
But I can’t. I can’t hate you, no matter how much I try.
Isolde is on my lap as I write this. She asks why I cry, and I don’t know how to tell her. Perhaps one day she’ll understand that a heart can break and still keep beating.
Do you know what you’ve done to me? You wrote of a garden, and now I’ll never see roses without thinking of you. You wrote of peace, and now I’ll never find it anywhere else.
You swore an oath. To me. To my life. And if you mean to keep it, then damn you, Clyde, don’t wait another five years to remind me you still breathe.
Yours,
A
The letter arrived a month later, carried on a hawk’s weary wings.
Clyde took it with hands still raw from polishing his sword. He broke the seal with his thumb, careful not to smear the ink, and unfolded the parchment slowly, as though it might vanish if handled too roughly.
The first thing he noticed wasn’t the words. It was the scent.
Even faint, dulled by days of flight, it was there: sandalwood, smoke, fig, the same perfume Aerion had worn since before Clyde had first pledged him. It clung to the parchment like a ghost of touch. Clyde pressed the page to his face, eyes closing, and breathed it in.
And for the first time in months, he smiled.
The lines carved into his brow softened. The iron weight on his chest eased, just a fraction. The ribbon in his armour seemed warmer against his ribs. Aerion was still the same—still reckless, still furious, still sharp enough to draw blood with words. Still his.
The ache didn’t vanish. It never would. But hope bloomed stubbornly in its place, fragile and green as the first shoots pushing through frost.
He sat down on his cot, lit a lantern, and took up his quill without hesitation. His hand was steady, his strokes sure. The words came easily, like water breaking through a dam:
My lord,
Your words reached me. They always do, no matter how far. I could not stop smiling when I read them, though the men thought me mad.
I feared you’d stopped carrying me in your thoughts. That the silence between us had grown too wide to cross. But then I held your letter and smelled it—still the same, still you—and I knew: I was never forgotten.
You ask what I’ve done to you. Do you know what you’ve done to me? Every oath I swore has turned to marrow. I can no longer remember the man I was before you tied me to your name.
Five years was too long. I will not make you wait again.
Yours,
C
He folded it, sealed it with black wax, and called for a hawk before the ink had even dried.
