Page 87 of Oath

Bootsteps crunched through the carnage. Voices—low, uncertain—moved among the corpses. Survivors picking through the ruin, searching for their own.

“Commander?” one called, too quietly, as if afraid of the answer. “Sir Clyde?”

No reply. Only the caw of a crow.

Then Torren’s voice, hoarse, broken: “Look—there!”

They ran. Stumbled over bodies. Fell to their knees when they reached him.

Clyde sat slumped against the shattered post, his armour drenched and torn, blood blackening every seam. His sword lay in the mud at his side, his hand empty for once. But his chest still moved. Barely. Shallow, ragged, every breath a knife.

“Alive,” Torren gasped, tears streaking through the grime on his face. He pressed two fingers to Clyde’s throat. “Alive!”

The men rallied like they had not all night. Rough hands steadied Clyde’s head, lifted his arms across shoulders, hauled him up from the mire. He groaned once, low, but did not wake.

As they bore him down the hill, one soldier murmured, “What’s this?” and reached inside his armour where the leather had split. He pulled free a strip of cloth—faded red, stained near brown, but still soft, still tied.

A ribbon.

Aerion’s ribbon.

Torren snatched it back before anyone else could see. Pressed it into Clyde’s palm, curling the knight’s fingers tight around it.

“He keeps it close,” Torren said roughly, daring anyone to question it. “It’s his charm. His shield. Don’t speak of it.”

No one did.

They carried their commander through the valley of the dead, his weight dragging, his breath faltering—but alive. Against the ruin of Hollow Ridge, it felt like a victory.

Aerion was in the solar, tea gone cold in a porcelain cup, Isolde scribbling by the window, when the hawk landed like a small, tired thunder on the sill. Heston’s hand was steady as ever as he crossed the room, but Aerion watched him with the kind of attention that has teeth in it; every step toward the Archduke’s desk felt like a drumbeat.

The seal was corroded from travel, the edges of the parchment softened and dark where rain had soaked through. Aerion broke it with fingers that did not tremble until the moment the paper came free. Then he froze, as though the letter might burn him.

He read it once. Slowly at first, tasting each short line.

My lord,

I lived.

They said we wouldn’t. They said we’d all fall. Maybe we did. I’m not sure I’m still standing.

The hill took everything. My horse. My shield. My name, maybe. But not your ribbon.

I tied it to my wrist before we charged. I kissed it like a holy thing.

My heart is a war drum. It only quiets when I think of you.

You. At the hearth. Laughing at the state of me. Telling me my hair’s a disgrace. Shoving tea into my hands like it could make me whole.

You.

You.

You.

You keep me alive.

—C