Page 69 of Oath
The curtains were drawn tight against the spring light, but it still managed to slip through in pale threads, glinting off the gilt frame of the great canopy bed. The Archduke of Valemont lay propped against a mound of pillows, his once-broad frame thinned by weeks of fever. His breathing rasped like paper dragged across stone, every inhale a labour, every exhale a quiet surrender.
Aerion lounged in the chair at his bedside, one boot hooked over the arm, a goblet of watered wine dangling from hisfingers. His voice was bright, careless. “If you keep wheezing like that, Father, they’ll start charging admission at the door. The courtiers will come to gawk at their dying Archduke like it’s some grand entertainment.”
The Archduke chuckled, a sound brittle but genuine. “You’d sell the tickets yourself, wouldn’t you?”
Aerion smirked, though his eyes softened. “Naturally. I’d make a fortune. Might even cover the cost of all those ridiculous banquets you insisted on hosting.”
“Those banquets kept this duchy fed,” the Archduke murmured. His hand trembled as it reached across the coverlet, but Aerion leaned forward before the effort could become too much. He set his wine aside and caught his father’s hand in his own.
The Archduke’s skin was thin, cool, like parchment stretched over bone. But his grip still held warmth. Still held him.
“I’ve asked too much of you,” the old man whispered. “Too soon. Too heavily.”
Aerion tilted his head, lashes low, his smile sly and brittle. “Oh? You mean the endless lectures? The demands for heirs? The council that squawks like hens at me to breed, as though I were a prize stallion?”
The Archduke’s lips twitched. “Just so.” He coughed, then sighed. “Your mother would have laughed at them. She laughed at me often enough.”
Aerion’s smirk faltered, just slightly. He’d heard little of her—always in fragments, never the whole. “I wish I’d met her.”
The Archduke’s eyes closed, but his voice carried, soft and steady. “She died bringing you into this world. And still… I loved her. Not at first. Our marriage was politics, convenience. But love came anyway. Stronger than I deserved. I think she would’ve loved you fiercely. You have her fire.”
Aerion looked away, blinking too quickly. His mouth curved, sharp as always, but his tone betrayed him. “I suppose I should thank her for the cheekbones, then.”
The Archduke gave a weak laugh that turned into another cough. When it passed, he squeezed Aerion’s hand faintly. “You’ll be Archduke soon. You’ll carry all of this. I only hope you find peace in it, Aerion. Not just duty. Not just war with your own council. But peace.”
“Peace,” Aerion repeated, voice low, mocking and aching in the same breath. “I’ve never been very good at that, Father.”
“Then be better than me,” the Archduke whispered. His eyes slipped half-shut. “Better than we were. Make Valemont thrive.”
Aerion leaned closer, pressing his forehead briefly to his father’s hand. His voice came softer, words trembling even as he tried to sharpen them into jest. “You leave me with a dying duchy, an empty bed, and a council of old men with spittle in their beards. You’re a cruel man, Father.”
The Archduke smiled faintly. “And you’re my son.”
Silence lingered. The only sound was the rasp of the Archduke’s breath and the faint crackle of the hearth.
Aerion stayed by his father’s side long after he drifted into fitful sleep, the mask of mockery slipping at last, leaving nothing but the raw, silent sorrow of a son watching his world unravel.
The bells tolled at dawn.
Not the sharp peal of festival, not the rousing call of alarm, but the slow, deep toll of endings. Each strike rolled heavy down the cliffs of Valemont, echoing over river and sea like thunder from a distant god. The sound clung to the stone walls, seeped into marrow, and made even the boldest tongues fall silent.
Servants wept openly in the corridors, their aprons stained with tears and flour alike. Courtiers moved in sombre processions, their faces composed into masks of reverence that fooled no one. They whispered as they passed, voices pitched low, hungry even in grief: what would happen now, who would hold the duchy, how long before the king’s hand reached further west.
Priests lit candles in alcoves dark with smoke, chanting prayers that sounded thin against the enormity of the tolling bells. The great statues in the chapel, marble saints long since stripped of names, seemed to stoop lower beneath the weight of centuries, as though even stone could mourn.
In the kitchens, boys no older than fifteen laid black cloths across the silver platters, their hands trembling. One muttered that the wine would taste of ash until the year was out. Another said the river itself would turn dark for mourning.
And through it all, the keep carried the name.
Archduke Hadrian Valemont.
Father of the West. Keeper of the Red Coast. Lord of Five Rivers.
Dead.
In the upper chambers, where the dawn light crept across cold marble floors, his youngest son sat alone.
Aerion had not wept.
