Page 49 of Of Iron and Moonlight

Only Osric remained behind, now settled into one of the armchairs by the windows. He watched Duncan the way a father watches a son insisting a pack weighs nothing when it clearly drags him down. “I know you have work to do,” he said gently, “but sit with me for a moment, will you?”

Duncan crossed the room and lowered himself into the nearest chair with a sigh. The wood creaked beneath his weight, familiar as an old friend.

“You look thin,” Osric observed, kindly enough. “And older in ways we don’t tally by years.”

“Court and travel leave little time for training.” Duncan smiled. “The muscle’s gone.”

“Ah.” Osric’s eyes warmed. “Laziness, then. Not neglect.”

Duncan pulled a face. “I’ll add it to Lemierre’s liabilities,” he said solemnly. “Duke. Idle.”

They laughed, and Duncan let his shoulders sink a fraction.

Osric adjusted his hands, absently covering an old scar on his thumb. “Your father hated the ledgers,” he said, almost to himself. “He’d wink at me, daring me to argue they weren’t the dullest inventions known to man. Then he’d scan a single column and uncover a truth the Council would have spent days circling.”

Duncan’s mouth bent faintly. “He always said he learned that from you.”

“He said many generous things he didn’t need to,” Osric replied softly. “That was his way.” He fell silent and turned his gaze toward the window.

Duncan followed the same path. He recalled being told how Osric, once an innkeeper on the valley’s edge, had uncovered rot in the accounts, and how Alaric had brought him into the household at once for his eye and his integrity. He had been with them since Duncan was a boy, and after his father’s death, Osric had taken up the mantle as naturally as breathing, becoming the quiet compass that kept Duncan from losing himself.

“How are you, truly?” Osric asked.

“A bit sore from the road,” Duncan began, deflecting, “and worried about the border. But I believe we’ve done what we can to prepare—”

Osric raised two fingers. “You know that isn’t what I meant.”

“If I say, ‘well enough,’ you’ll call me a liar.”

“I would,” Osric said simply. “And I would be correct.”

Duncan meant to answer with something clever, but the words caught in his throat. Something in Osric’s familiar voice, in the shadow of Alaric that clung to him, pulled loose a cord Duncan had kept drawn tight and buried, lest it break him if he looked at it directly. He bent forward, burying his face in his hands, and the grief and strain he had so carefully contained slipped free.

He sobbed, and Osric let him.

A steady hand came to rest on Duncan’s shoulder. It did not hush or hurry. It simply stayed, offering the kind of support that went further than condolences.

After a time, Osric said quietly, “Good.”

Then, softer still, “Breathe.”

Duncan did.

“Again.”

He did.

“Father would have known what to do,” Duncan said once the storm had passed. “About Kryovarre. About Oorlon’s demand. It should be him at court, not me. It should be Garriden.” He lifted his head, looking toward the gardens where he and his brothers had once torn through the hedges, driving their nursemaid to despair.

“Your father would have answered that,” Osric said, “by asking how you know this with such certainty. Then he’d have dismissed the notion as foolish. Alaric wrestled with every decision as you do now, no matter how effortless it appeared.”

Duncan exhaled, accepting the truth of it. “I am so tired.” The admission felt bare. “Kryovarre will surely drag us into war before harvest, but I resent him more for making me wish my father were still alive. I’m ashamed to admit that part of me wants not what is best for Lemierre, but simply the chance to set this duty down and just be his son again for another hour.”

Osric’s thumb pressed once into the fabric of Duncan’s shoulder. “There,” he said. “Truth borne plainly sits better on a man than borrowed resolve. And what would Alaric tell you now?”

Duncan swallowed. “To carry on.”

“He would,” Osric agreed with a quiet smile. “And he would mean it as permission, not rebuke.”