Page 38 of Oath

The First Letter

The days after Clyde’s departure were hollow things.

Aerion filled them as best he could; with petitions, with inspections, with silks he didn’t care about and meals he didn’t taste. He let the court drone at him, their voices little more than the buzzing of flies, while he reclined with his goblet and practised the art of not listening. He mocked their suggestions with cutting barbs, though his wit landed duller than usual, his laughter echoing too sharply in the vaulted halls.

The keep itself felt colder. Emptier. As though the stones had swallowed Clyde whole and were now grieving him in silence.Aerion hated the echo of his own footsteps. Hated the long corridors without the steady rhythm of boots trailing behind. He found himself turning too quickly in crowded halls, expecting to meet storm-grey eyes that weren’t there.

He told himself he didn’t wait by the windows.

Didn’t ask after the warfront.

Didn’t count the days.

And then the courier arrived.

The letter was plain. No crest, no seal, only Aerion’s name scrawled across the fold in stark, utilitarian hand. The ink was almost aggressive in its simplicity, angular strokes meant for clarity, not grace. It was so unlike the perfumed petitions of the court, so unlike the gilded correspondence of dukes and lords, that Aerion’s chest tightened the moment he saw it.

He turned it over twice in his hands, as if expecting some trick. As if the weight of it might reveal a hidden message. Then, with a sharp gesture, he dismissed the servants and retreated to his chambers.

He locked the door.

He sat on the edge of his bed.

And he read.

My lord,

The march is quiet. Eastern frost bites early this year, and the younger soldiers feel it worst. I find myself missing the heat of your wine-soaked voice, even when it insults me.

We make camp in a place called Maeren’s Hollow. Birch trees like spears, thin as you. The sky here is always grey. It makes the world feel like it’s stopped.

You’d hate it.

I keep a fire, and I sharpen my blade, but your absence gnaws worse than the cold.

If I were a poet, I’d write your name into every tree I pass.

I am not a poet. So I ride instead.

—Clyde

Aerion’s hand trembled by the time he reached the end.

He read it once.

Then again.

And again.

By the fourth reading, the words had sunk beneath his skin, heavy as lead, hot as flame. His throat burned. His chest ached. His vision blurred at the edges, though he would not call it tears.

He pressed the parchment to his lips, just once, and the taste of ink and paper was sharper than any wine. He held it there as if it might bleed warmth into him, as if Clyde himself might be summoned by touch alone.

Finally, Aerion lay back on his bed, curling slightly onto his side, the letter clutched tight against him. He slid it beneath his pillow like a secret, a relic, a sacred thing.

The pillow smelled faintly of cedar and rosewater. But now, impossibly, it also smelled of smoke and leather. His imagination betrayed him—Clyde’s scent haunting him, Clyde’s voice threading through every word he had written.

Aerion closed his eyes. The longing in his chest was unbearable, a blade twisting slowly, endlessly. He had not known how much of himself the knight had carried away until the hollow yawned open and swallowed him whole.