Oath of the King-Chapter 35: The Quiet Between Battles

The room was small.

A single narrow bed.A washbasin.Light leaking through the cracked shutters like broken promises.

Alden sat on the edge of the bed, stripped down to his bloodstained tunic, hands limp in his lap. His knuckles were raw. His ribs were bruised dark. His sword lay across the floor where he'd dropped it, forgotten for now.

Sylvie knelt in front of him, a damp cloth trembling slightly in her hands.

She dabbed at the cut on his temple with agonizing care.

Neither of them spoke.

The silence between them wasn't empty.It was full—of everything they couldn't say.Full of the way his jaw clenched when she touched a wound too tender.Full of the way she bit her lip to keep from crying when she saw how deep the bruises ran.

Alden stared past her, at nothing, his shoulders stiff, rigid as stone.

It wasn't pride that kept him still.

It was shame.

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Sylvie wrung out the cloth and pressed it gently against another cut, her hand brushing his jawline.

He flinched.

Not from pain.

From being seen.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

He blinked, confused, finally meeting her eyes.

"For what?"

"For not getting to you sooner," she said, voice thick.

He shook his head, a bitter, broken sound escaping his throat. "You saved me."

"You saved yourself," she said fiercely. "I'm just... here to remind you you're allowed to."

The cloth dropped from her hand.

She reached up, cupped his face between her palms.

He stiffened—but didn't pull away.

Her thumbs brushed the hollow under his eyes, the bruises, the blood.Touching him like he wasn't a weapon.Like he wasn't something broken.

Just a man.

A man who had chosen mercy over revenge.

Alden closed his eyes, a shudder running through him.

For a moment, it wasn't the training yard.It wasn't the alleyway.It wasn't the battlefield waiting just beyond the horizon.

It was just Sylvie.And the shaking, stubborn, terrified thing inside him learning how to stay.

She leaned forward, resting her forehead against his.

Their breath mingled, shallow and shaky.

"I'm not leaving," she whispered.

He opened his mouth—But no words came.

So instead, he lifted a trembling hand, tangled his fingers in the fabric of her sleeve, and held on like a drowning man clinging to the last scrap of shore.

And Sylvie stayed there, with him, while the world outside kept spinning, brutal and merciless.

They stayed there until the light through the shutters faded.Until the wounds stopped bleeding.Until the hurt was something they could carry together.

It wasn't perfect.

It wasn't easy.

But it was real.

And for the first time in a long, long time...

Alden let himself believe that maybe—just maybe—he could survive.

Not just the next battle.

Not just the next day.

But the whole damn war.