Page 92 of Oath
Isolde tilted her head, considering this with the serious gravity only children managed. “Do knights like roses on tables?”
Aerion’s mouth curved. “No. They like meat and wine and roaring fires. But roses remind them of home. And of who waits here.” He brushed her golden hair back from her face. “That’s you, little shadow. You’re the roses.”
She giggled and buried her face in his shoulder, and for a moment Aerion’s sharpness melted. His stride slowed. His hand shifted to cradle her more firmly, as if she were the one anchoring him.
They came to the great hall. Workers swarmed around the long banquet table, fussing over placements. Aerion barked at them to adjust a banner, then glanced down at Isolde. “Look closely,” he murmured, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “All of this will be yours one day. Every stone. Every voice that hushes when you enter. Every hand that bends when you command.”
Her small brow furrowed. “That sounds heavy.”
Aerion stilled, then laughed softly—a sound few at court had ever heard. “It is. But you’ll bear it better than I. Because you’ll know what matters.”
“And what matters?” she asked, chin propped on his shoulder.
He looked east, to the horizon he could not yet see, his voice lowering like a vow. “That the ones you love always come home.”
Isolde nodded as if it were simple. As if it were possible. Then she pressed her doll against his chest as though to gift him something of her own.
“For you, Papa. So you’re not lonely.”
Aerion’s throat tightened. He kissed the crown of her head and whispered against her hair, “You are the only reason I am not.”
And so they walked on together—through the halls filled with light and noise, father and daughter bound close, preparing not just a banquet but a promise of belonging. For a few precious hours, Valemont Keep felt less like stone and crown, and more like home.
The bells did not ring this time.
There was no warning.
Only the slow, creaking groan of the portcullis rising—iron teeth grinding against stone, each scrape like a dirge—and the hollow thunder of hooves echoing up the long causeway. The sound carried into the keep like a heartbeat grown too heavy, too slow, reverberating against marble and marrow alike.
Aerion stood at the top of the grand stair in his formal silks, every fold pressed to perfection, every ring gleaming in place. His hair had been combed into golden waves, his perfume a faint veil of sandalwood and fig. In his hand he carried a letter, sealed fresh in red wax, its edges still warm from the candle. He had written it with steady strokes that morning—words of longing cloaked in wit, words meant to bridge distance, to say without shame:I am waiting. Come home to me.
And he had practised his smile. The smile of an Archduke, sharp enough to command and warm enough to welcome. The smile of a man who had survived loneliness and now, at last, would be rewarded for it.
That smile died as soon as he saw the carriage.
It was not laden with victors. No laughter preceded it. No cheers followed. It rolled heavy and deliberate, the wheels groaning like a funeral march. Over its bed was stretched a flag, black as ash, stitched through with a single thread of red.
Valemont mourning colours.
The air seemed to vanish from the hall. Courtiers gathered behind Aerion froze, a ripple of whispers shivering from lip to lip. The steward clutched his ledger so tightly the wood cover cracked in his hands. The chamberlain closed his eyes as though he could unsee it, his lips forming silent prayer.
Aerion did not move.
The letter slipped from his fingers. It landed softly on the marble at his feet, the seal cracking against stone with a sound far too small for what it meant.
He descended one step. Then another.
Each fall of his boots echoed, hollow, too loud in the silence. His silks swished at his heels, and the perfume he had chosen, the scent he always wore for Clyde, turned suffocating in his own nose. At the base of the stair, Heston waited, hands folded, face carved from stone. Only his eyes betrayed him: wet, trembling, betraying what his voice would not say.
Aerion passed him without a glance. His gaze was locked on the black-draped carriage, on the unnatural stillness beneath that flag, on the terrible shape of what it must hold. His throat worked, but no sound came. His hands twitched at his sides, aching for something that was not there—Clyde’s ribbon, Clyde’s hand, Clyde’s laugh.
He had imagined this moment a thousand ways: Clyde riding tall, grimed and bloodied but alive; Clyde dismounting with that steady silence, taking his palm, bowing low. Every dream had ended with Clyde alive. Breathing.Here.
Now those dreams shattered like glass.
His chest cracked open around a single word, whispered hoarse into the hollow keep:
“No.”
