The days after Clyde’s departure were hollow things.

Aerion filled them as best he could; with petitions, with inspections, with silks he didn’t care about and meals he didn’t taste. He let the court drone at him, their voices little more than the buzzing of flies, while he reclined with his goblet and practised the art of not listening. He mocked their suggestions with cutting barbs, though his wit landed duller than usual, his laughter echoing too sharply in the vaulted halls.

The keep itself felt colder. Emptier. As though the stones had swallowed Clyde whole and were now grieving him in silence. Aerion hated the echo of his own footsteps. Hated the long corridors without the steady rhythm of boots trailing behind. He found himself turning too quickly in crowded halls, expecting to meet storm-grey eyes that weren’t there.

He told himself he didn’t wait by the windows.

Didn’t ask after the warfront.

Didn’t count the days.

And then the courier arrived.

The letter was plain. No crest, no seal, only Aerion’s name scrawled across the fold in stark, utilitarian hand. The ink was almost aggressive in its simplicity, angular strokes meant for clarity, not grace. It was so unlike the perfumed petitions of the court, so unlike the gilded correspondence of dukes and lords, that Aerion’s chest tightened the moment he saw it.

He turned it over twice in his hands, as if expecting some trick. As if the weight of it might reveal a hidden message. Then, with a sharp gesture, he dismissed the servants and retreated to his chambers.

He locked the door.

He sat on the edge of his bed.

And he read.

My lord,

The march is quiet. Eastern frost bites early this year, and the younger soldiers feel it worst. I find myself missing the heat of your wine-soaked voice, even when it insults me.

We make camp in a place called Maeren’s Hollow. Birch trees like spears, thin as you. The sky here is always grey. It makes the world feel like it’s stopped.

You’d hate it.

I keep a fire, and I sharpen my blade, but your absence gnaws worse than the cold.

If I were a poet, I’d write your name into every tree I pass.

I am not a poet. So I ride instead.

—Clyde

Aerion’s hand trembled by the time he reached the end.

He read it once.

Then again.

And again.

By the fourth reading, the words had sunk beneath his skin, heavy as lead, hot as flame. His throat burned. His chest ached. His vision blurred at the edges, though he would not call it tears.

He pressed the parchment to his lips, just once, and the taste of ink and paper was sharper than any wine. He held it there as if it might bleed warmth into him, as if Clyde himself might be summoned by touch alone.

Finally, Aerion lay back on his bed, curling slightly onto his side, the letter clutched tight against him. He slid it beneath his pillow like a secret, a relic, a sacred thing.

The pillow smelled faintly of cedar and rosewater. But now, impossibly, it also smelled of smoke and leather. His imagination betrayed him—Clyde’s scent haunting him, Clyde’s voice threading through every word he had written.

Aerion closed his eyes. The longing in his chest was unbearable, a blade twisting slowly, endlessly. He had not known how much of himself the knight had carried away until the hollow yawned open and swallowed him whole.

For the first time in days, Aerion slept.

And he dreamed of birch trees, grey skies, and a man who was not a poet—

and yet had written his name all the same.

He didn’t reply right away.

He sat at his desk that night, a single candle guttering in the draft, parchment stretched before him like a challenge. His hand hovered over the inkpot, fingers twitching. Then, with a sharp inhale, he began.

The first letter was all edges, sharp teeth and polished wit, every line dipped in venom he didn’t mean. He told Clyde his prose was graceless, his descriptions bleak, his longing unbecoming of a knight sworn to duty. He painted himself amused, untouchable, the way he always did when the court pressed too close. The words looked perfect on the page. They glittered with poison and charm.

He read them once, twice—

then fed the page to the flame.

The parchment curled black, the letters bleeding into smoke. Aerion watched until nothing but ash remained.

The second letter was worse because it was truer. Sincere in a way that made his pulse pound and his throat tighten. He wrote of dreams he couldn’t outrun, of how the keep had grown colder without Clyde’s shadow at his back, of how he wandered the halls like a restless ghost, waiting for boots that would not come. The words spilled unguarded, dangerous, far too naked.

That one he burned, too.

Fingers clenched. Jaw locked.

The third letter was barely more than a whisper: one jagged line scrawled across the page.

You have no right to miss me first.

He stared at it until his vision blurred, until his hand shook so badly he nearly tore the parchment. Then, with shaking fingers, he consigned it to the fire.

The flames seemed to mock him as they devoured his weakness, hissing and spitting until his chamber reeked of smoke.

By the time he wrote the fourth, dawn had begun to pale the sky. His candle was half-burnt, his eyes red-rimmed, his hands stained with ink and ash. This time, he didn’t let himself stop. Didn’t let himself think. He simply wrote.

Clyde,

Your letter arrived like a dagger to the ribs. You’d be flattered if you knew how long I stared at it before opening it. (Far too long. Never mind.)

I walked through the west garden today. It’s wilting. Without anyone to guard it, even the roses misbehave.

Tell the trees they’re lucky. I’d carve my name into you if I thought you wouldn’t turn it into a metaphor.

Write again. I command it.

—Aerion

He didn’t reread it. Couldn’t.

He folded it fast, sealed it with hot red wax and the bite of his signet, and thrust it into the courier’s hands at dawn. His voice was a blade as he warned, “If this doesn’t reach him whole, I’ll see you gelded before you ride again.”

Only when the hooves clattered into the misted courtyard did Aerion retreat to his chamber.

He stripped, crawled beneath his sheets, and pulled Clyde’s first letter from beneath his pillow. The parchment was already soft at the edges from his constant touch. He pressed it against his lips, eyes closing as if the ink might breathe.

“You stupid,” he whispered into the dawn, voice breaking, “silent, wonderful bastard.”

And at last, with the faintest trace of smoke and leather still clinging to him, Aerion slept.