He bled into the mud like anyone else.
I think he believed he was the hero.
There is no glory here. Only ghosts.
I keep your name to shield me.
I write it on my chest with ash every time I ride. I don’t think the gods care, but I do. Maybe that’s enough.
Don’t write something pretty back. Don’t try to make it better. Just let it sit.
Just… stay alive.
I don’t need a garden. I need you.
—C
He read the lines once, then folded the sheet with hands that trembled. The ribbon at his breastplate rubbed against his palm; the faded red felt like a pulse under his fingers. He pressed the corner of the page to his lips—no ceremony, only a private benediction—and sealed it with black wax, heavy enough that the stamp left a dent like a small grave.
Clyde handed the letter to the hawker with a curt nod and a weight in his gut that would not lift. The bird took off into the pale morning, beating a ragged flight toward west and stone and the man who had been at the centre of every quiet thing in him. He watched it go until it was nothing more than a black dot against the grey, then turned back to the fire.
He did not sleep that night either. He kept his helmet close, touched the carved letters in his shield again as if he might read in them an answer before the world delivered one. He told himself the letter would be enough for now—that putting the ache into ink and sending it out like a message in a bottle was some small mercy.
But the ache stayed, wrapped around his ribs like a band he could not cut. The ghosts circled anyway. The rain hardened into ice in the hollows of his coat. He wrapped his hands around the warmth that remained—the ribbon, the wood-smoothed shield, the quiet fact that a hawk carried his plea—and waited for a reply that he dreaded and wanted in equal measure.
The letter arrived soaked through at the edges, the ink feathered where rain had touched it. The hawk that bore it had nearly frozen on the flight, its talons stiff as it perched, feathers rimmed in ice.
Aerion dismissed the bird and the servant both without a word. He didn’t wait for the candles to be trimmed or for the fire to be stoked higher. He simply sank to the rug in the centre of his chamber, cross-legged like a boy, Clyde’s old cloak wrapped tight around his shoulders. The wool smelled faintly of leather, steel, and smoke—like him.
He unfolded the parchment with careful hands, flattening the wet corners, and began to read.
Once.
Then again.
Then aloud, as though the words would change if he gave them breath.
There is no glory here. Only ghosts.
I keep your name to shield me.
The fire crackled. Wind pressed against the shutters. Aerion didn’t cry—not yet. His sapphire eyes were fixed and unblinking, the page trembling only slightly in his grasp. He stayed like that for a long time, the silence of the chamber pressing in on him like stone.
At last, he set the letter aside and reached for a clean sheet. His quill hovered. No speeches. No barbs. No velvet-wrapped jests. Just one line, sharp as a vow:
C,
If my name is your shield, let your name be my sword.
—A
He stared at the words until the ink dried. Then, with a breath that shook despite himself, he folded the page in two. He pressed it to his lips, kissed it once, hard enough to smudge the corner.
But he didn’t summon a hawk. Didn’t call for Heston to carry it to the couriers.
Instead, he slipped the folded page into his robe, close against his chest, beneath the layer of Clyde’s cloak. And there it stayed.
For the rest of the week, he wore it like contraband, like confession, like armour he had no right to claim. He touched it in council when the lords prattled about taxes and heirs. He touched it at night when the silence clawed too loudly. He touched it when he woke, breathless, from dreams of steel and blood.
