Page 160 of Of Iron and Moonlight

Brannoc’s eyes lit. “That,” he said, slapping the table, “is the finest idea I have ever heard.”

Isander glanced at Duncan, reading his reaction. Despite the teasing, Brannoc had voiced what every man in the tent felt. They were tired of waiting. Tired of circling a stone fortress while winter crept closer.

Duncan gave a single nod. “Ronnie, what do we need to cut the channel?”

“Men, mostly,” Cairon replied, fingers tracing his goatee as he studied the terrain lines. “We have enough axes and pikes to break frozen ground. We can fashion shovels from the spare oak shields we hauled from Crenn.”

Brannoc grinned. “I have no shortage of idle hands. Give my men work and they will thank you.”

“Tonight,” Duncan declared. “It is time this siege ended.”

“And this war,” Osric added, lifting his chin. “Bran may yet survive his impatience.”

“I am not dying of impatience, Ossy,” Brannoc protested. “I am dying of boredom.”

Isander clapped him on the back. “If you complain loudly while digging mud, perhaps the whole city will hear and surrender just to silence you.”

Grateful laughter rose from men who needed it as much as air.

“You would miss me,” Brannoc said, feigning injury. “All of you.”

“That we would,” Osric admitted, stretching until his spine cracked.

They filed out of the temporary command tent pitched near Alewyn’s looming walls, each carrying nerves and anticipation. Merrick lingered just long enough to flick Isander a sweeping bow—too graceful to be sincere, too pointed to be polite—then sauntered out with the confidence of a cat convinced trouble would always arrive on its terms.

Isander scowled after him, heat rising in his chest. Months reunited, and still the sight of Merrick’s retreating back stirred the same muddle of feelings: gratitude, resentment, frustration. Reluctant affection. Part of him wanted to say it no longer mattered. Another, the part that had carried the hurt longest, could not forget the unanswered letters.

“You should speak with him,” Duncan said, tracking Isander’s glare.

Isander waved two exasperated hands. “He taunts me. You have seen it.”

“That is how he copes,” Duncan said. “When Merrick does not know how to face something, he wraps it in detached levity until he can bear to look at it plainly. If you spoke straight, he would listen. He always does when it matters.”

Isander let out a humorless laugh. “What would it change? It does not turn back time, ten years spent wondering where he had gone.”

“I do not excuse him for that,” Duncan conceded, not pressing but not retreating. “But, though Kora laid out the argument, he only truly agreed to help us because you asked. And he has stayed longer than he needed to. Longer than is safe for him.” His expression softened. “For all his faults, he is still Merrick. Still your brother.”

Duncan hesitated, then added, “Perhaps I am quicker to forgive because I would give anything to speak to Garriden or Corwin again. You do not know how many chances you have left to say what needs saying.” Another pause, shadowed by memory. “Do not ruin the next decade because you are still angry about the last. What is broken can be rebuilt. Not as it was, perhaps. But into something that can stand beside the grief instead of being buried by it.”

Isander huffed. “You sound like your father.”

“Because those are his words,” Duncan admitted with a faint smile. “I was eleven. Garriden borrowed my boots without asking, wore them into the river, and brought them back soaked. I refused to speak to him for weeks.”

“Dramatic.”

“Intolerably so,” Duncan agreed, standing. “Father told me to stop keeping a tally of slights like a miser. Let the past rest, or you will spend your life fighting battles that ended long before you noticed.”

Isander smiled faintly. Sheepishly.

“If we do not join them soon,” Duncan waved him toward the tent flap, closing the topic, “Bran will start digging in the wrong direction out of spite.”

They made their way past rows of canvas tents stiffened by frost to the river cut, where the first shift had already begun breaking ground. The air carried the dull fatigue of men who had waited too long for an ending. There was not much fight left in them. The war had to end soon.

Duncan stripped off his cloak, took one of Cairon’s makeshift shovels, and stepped into the trench beside his soldiers.

Chins lifted.

Shoulders set.