Page 63 of Oath
Then twice.
By the third time, the words blurred.
An arrow kissed me today… I thought of you when it cut me… Still yours, if you’ll have me.
Aerion pressed the parchment to his lips, his chest shuddering with a breath he couldn’t steady. He whispered Clyde’s name like a curse, like a prayer.
Spring was close now. The thaw would break the roads free. If he acted quickly, the caravans could reach the Eastern Front by the equinox.
By noon, orders rang through the keep. Wagons were loaded with grain and salted meat, barrels of wine, bolts of fresh linen for bandages. Armour polished, wheels greased, horses shod. The courtyard filled with the clamour of preparation.
The vassals found him in the stables, already saddling his own black stallion. His sleeves were rolled, his cloak thrown over a beam, hair unbound and wild as his temper.
“My lord,” Lord Baedwin began, voice strained with the effort of diplomacy. “This is folly. You cannot leave Valemont. The duchy needs its ruler.”
“The duchy has walls and guards and more advisors than it needs,” Aerion snapped, tightening the girth-strap with a sharp tug. “What the men at the front have is hunger, rot, and silence. I’ll not sit on velvet while they choke on smoke.”
Another vassal, Lord Branvel, stepped forward, wringing his heavy hands. “Your life is worth more than wagons of grain. If the rebels strike you—if you are captured—the duchy will fall into chaos.”
Aerion turned on him, eyes like ice catching light. “Do you think I care for chaos? Do you think I care for comfort? I’ll not be told I can’t ride to him with so much as bread and wine.”
Murmurs rippled—shock, dismay, outrage.
Baedwin pressed harder, desperate. “My lord, the rumours already—”
“Let them whisper,” Aerion hissed, swinging into the saddle. The stallion stamped, tossing its head. “Let them choke on it. I’ve lived with their venom all my life. I will not live with regret.”
The stable boys scattered as he gathered the reins. The vassals shouted, pleaded, but he spurred the horse forward, cloak snapping behind him.
The carriages followed. The wheels rumbled like distant thunder as the procession rolled out of Valemont’s gates, laden with supplies—and with Aerion himself, defiant at its head.
Behind him, the keep loomed, its towers catching the weak winter sun. Ahead stretched leagues of frozen road, eastward into war.
And somewhere beyond the frost and blood and silence, Clyde was waiting.
Aerion clenched his jaw, the letter tucked against his chest beneath his doublet. He would bring it back to its author. He swore it.
The wagons rattled into camp just past midday, wheels groaning over frozen mud. The air reeked of smoke and iron—fires smouldering in pits, blood long frozen into the earth, horses stamping and snorting in the bitter cold.
Clyde stood at the edge of the field, cloak whipped by the wind, his ledger tucked under one arm. His men gathered fast, gauntfaces turning with something like hope as the carriages drew closer.
“Count it,” Clyde ordered, his voice steady though his chest felt tight. He walked alongside the first wagon, running his gloved hand across the crates: grain, wine, salted pork, bolts of linen, fresh steel. His lips pressed into a hard line. Supplies meant survival. Supplies meant weeks more life.
“Commander.” Renn jogged up, breath steaming. “It’s more than we expected. Whoever sent this—”
But Clyde didn’t hear the rest.
He saw him.
At the head of the train, astride a black stallion cloaked in frost and smoke—Aerion. Cloak of crimson velvet snapping in the wind, hair loose, eyes burning brighter than any fire in camp.
For a moment, Clyde forgot the ledger in his hands. Forgot the cold, the hunger, the blood staining his collar still faintly from days ago.
Forgot everything but him.
His heart lurched so hard it felt like a wound. He wanted to run—to seize Aerion, drag him from that damned horse, crush their mouths together until the world itself cracked.
But he didn’t.
