Page 12 of Oath
Aerion’s lips parted into a smile, sly and serpentine. He leaned closer, voice dropping just above a whisper. “You know, I was warned about the silent ones. Dangerous. Hungry. Boiling under the skin.”
Clyde’s jaw flexed. His eyes never left the crowd.
Aerion smirked, delighted. “Ah. There’s a crack.”
He leaned in so close his lips nearly brushed the shell of Clyde’s ear. His words dripped honey and venom both: “Would you fuck me if I asked nicely?”
The words clung in the air, thick as smoke, daring, poisonous.
Clyde turned his head, not sharply, but with the deliberate weight of a wolf deciding whether to bite. Grey eyes locked onto Aerion’s sapphire ones.
“No,” he said. His voice carried no heat, no hesitation. “Not even if you begged.”
The words struck like a slap.
Aerion flinched—not much, barely the twitch of a muscle—but enough to feel the crack beneath his own skin. The smirk returned at once, pasted on like porcelain. Fragile. Gleaming.“So, it speaks,” he said, letting laughter lace the words, though they rang thinner than before.
He turned sharply, cape flaring, and drifted back into the sea of brocade and laughter. The smirk stayed on his lips, but something gnawed beneath it; half a pout, half a curiosity he hated to admit.
Behind him, Clyde returned to watching the exits, impassive as stone.
And for the first time, Aerion found himself watching him back.
The night dragged on, noblemen puffing themselves up like strutting cockerels, noblewomen whispering venom behind jewelled fans, all of them spinning endlessly beneath painted ceilings and plaster smiles. The chandeliers blazed above, dripping gold light onto the whirl of gowns and cloaks.
Aerion played the host as only he could; every smile sharpened with mockery, every laugh dipped in venom, every toast a performance to remind them that he, not his father, held the room. He danced once, perhaps twice, but more often prowled the edges, swirling wine, leaning close to whisper something wicked in a girl’s ear, or worse, in her husband’s.
And through it all, Clyde never moved from his post.
He was a dark pillar by the column, shoulders squared, eyes cutting across the room with the focus of a hawk circling prey. While others drank, he watched. While others preened, he calculated. Tension coiled through him like a drawn bow.
Then—something shifted.
It was subtle. The music stuttered. A single violin string snapped, the note breaking into a sharp, ugly wail that made every head turn.
Clyde moved.
Aerion blinked, confused at the sudden blur of black across the floor. He turned, wine still in hand, just as a figure slipped from behind one of the marble pillars. Masked. Hooded. Blade glinting in the candlelight.
They rushed straight toward him.
Gasps tore through the ballroom like a wave. A goblet clattered to the floor. The dance fractured, nobles stumbling back in a flurry of silk and lace.
Time didn’t slow. It stopped.
Aerion’s eyes went wide, but before he could move, Clyde was there.
The knight crossed the expanse in two great strides, faster than any man that size had a right to move. His sword was half-drawn, but not fast enough, because the assassin’s blade was already arcing, silver and hungry, aimed at Aerion’s heart.
And Clyde took it.
The sound was dull. Wet Sickening. The hiss of breath leaving lungs too fast.
Aerion screamed. The goblet fell from his hand, wine scattering like blood across the floor.
The masked figure was already gone, vanishing into the chaos, slipping between shrieking courtiers as guards surged far too late. Shouts echoed—“Seize them! Block the doors!”—but Aerion didn’t hear.
All he saw was Clyde.
