Chapter 22 Home
Chapter twenty-two
Home
The keep pulsed with life, every corridor buzzing like a hive.
Servants rushed with armfuls of linens and garlands, courtiers rehearsed toasts and speeches, the kitchens belched steam and spice.
At the center of it all was Aerion, striding like a man possessed—sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued, velvet cloak trailing like a shadow of authority.
Isolde trailed after him as faithfully as his shadow itself.
Barefoot despite the polished floors, her small braid bouncing, her little hands clutching a wooden doll with half its paint rubbed off.
She followed him from hall to hall, her gaze darting curiously to every fluttering banner and every frantic servant.
When her steps grew too short to match his stride, Aerion turned, bent, and scooped her into his arms without breaking pace. She squealed with laughter, clutching his shoulders, the doll wedged between them.
“What are you doing, Papa?” she asked, peering over his arm as he gestured for servants to realign a tapestry.
“Making perfection,” Aerion replied, his voice crisp for the steward and softer for her. “Our knights will return within days. They deserve a banquet so grand that they’ll forget mud and blood, if only for one night.”
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.”
Aerion’s whisper vanished into the vast bailey, swallowed by stone.
The flag did not stir.
His steps quickened, no longer measured, no longer an Archduke’s procession but a man running through his own ruin.
Fabric hissed against the stairs as he descended, his hand gripping the banister so tightly the carved wood bit into his palm.
Courtiers called after him, softly at first, then louder, as if their voices could soften what waited at the bottom of the stairs.
He did not hear them.
When he reached the carriage, he stopped. For a heartbeat—just one—he stood motionless, eyes fixed on the black-draped shape. His hands trembled at his sides. His lips moved soundlessly, as though trying to form Clyde’s name and failing.
Then his voice tore loose, ragged and desperate:
“Open it.”
No one moved.
The guards flanking the carriage exchanged uncertain glances. The chamberlain half-stepped forward, shaking his head. “My lord—”
“I said open it!” Aerion roared, voice cracking against the stone walls. The sound rang through the hall like a whipcrack. Servants flinched. The steward dropped his ledger.
The guards obeyed.
The flag was pulled back with slow, reluctant hands. The fabric slithered across wood like a shroud being peeled from a tomb.
Clyde lay beneath it.
Armor shattered, chestplate dented, blood dried in ugly black patches across leather and mail.
His face was pale, too pale, lips parted slightly as if he’d breathed his last hours before.
His hair, once gold-brown, was matted with mud.
His hands lay at his sides, fingers curled faintly toward his palms, as if they’d been holding a sword that was no longer there.
For Aerion, the world collapsed.
“No,” he whispered again. Then louder. “No, no, no—”
He stumbled forward, seized the edge of the carriage, and hauled himself up with a strength born of madness. His rings scraped against the wood as he half-fell inside.
And then he was on Clyde’s body.
He clutched at him, shaking him, gathering him into his arms as though the sheer ferocity of his grip could summon life back into those still limbs. His sobs ripped out raw, unpractised, animal. He buried his face against Clyde’s chest, heedless of the blood stiffening his silks.
“You can’t die!” he screamed, voice breaking in the hollow hall. “Do you hear me? You are mine! I am your master, and I do not give you permission!”
The courtiers gasped. A priest dropped his censer. No one dared move closer.
Aerion’s tears streaked down his face, falling hot against Clyde’s cold cheek. He rocked him like a child, like a lover, like a man drowning and clutching driftwood. “You swore to me,” he whispered, voice splintering into something fragile. “You swore to me, Clyde. You promised.”
And then—
A sound.
Faint. Rough.
Not the rattle of death, but words.
“I would never… betray my oath.”
Aerion froze.
His head snapped up. Clyde’s eyes were still closed, lashes clumped with sweat and ash, but his lips moved. His breath came shallow, torn ragged from a chest that struggled but still lived.
For one suspended moment, Aerion could not breathe. Could not move. The world narrowed to that faint rasp, that oath clung to even in near-death.
Aerion’s cry broke anew, but this time it was joy tangled with terror. He clutched Clyde’s bloodied face in both hands, raining frantic kisses over his brow, his temple, his mouth, sobbing into each one. “You bastard,” he whispered between them. “You impossible, stubborn bastard.”
And Clyde, barely conscious, smiled the faintest ghost of a smile.