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On the sixth day, Evander broke a training post clean in half.

It wasn’t his intention, but his anger and irritation had been growing for days now. Freya was, quite obviously, avoiding him. The more he tried to see her, the more she avoided him, almost as if she were aware of what he was trying to do.

It wasn’t the first post he’d broken that week. It was, by Callum’s count, the third. The splintered top spun off into the mud and landed at the feet of a lad who’d been waiting for his turn. The lad looked at it, looked at Evander, and quietly decided he’d rather train tomorrow.

Evander stood breathing hard with the sword hanging from his fist. Sweat ran into his eyes. It did nothing to drown out the sound that had followed him all week, the sound of a door closing softly every time he came near it.

Again, he thought about how many days it had been. Six days. She’d not said one word to him in six days. It was tantamount to torture.

He’d tried. He’d stood in the nursery doorway the first morning like a fool and waited for her to look at him, and she’d turned her back and gone on changing Archer as if he were a draught she meant to ignore.

He’d gone back that night and stood outside the nursery in the dark with his knuckles raised, and he hadn’t knocked. What would he have said? He’d already told her the truth. She hadn’t liked it. Telling it to her again wouldn’t change it.

So he broke posts instead. Breaking posts was a good way to forget that his wife was avoiding him.

Let her.

He had done this to them, anyway. He had told her the truth, despite the way she had been looking at him. He could’ve easily lied, but lying to Freya about such a thing didn’t feel right. Even if he broke her heart, she deserved the truth about the vow he had made to himself.

“Well,” Callum said, strolling over with a waterskin, “that one’s done for… and the others. If ye keep this up, me Laird, ye’ll be out of posts.”

Evander took the water and drank without answering. Callum was trying to strike up a conversation as he always did, but Evander wasn’t in the mood for it. The only thing he was in the mood for was destroying more of these posts until he could forget Freya’s face entirely.

Callum leaned against the fence and surveyed the wreckage. He was grinning, the easy grin he’d worn across twelve years of campfires and muddy roads. “Ye ken, I never thought she’d affect ye so much.”

Evander lowered the waterskin.

“Be mindful of who ye trust.”

He’d thought nothing of it at the time. He’d thought nothing of it for six days. Jack and Callum had been snapping at each other since the first night, and Evander had put Jack’s warning down to spite and gone to bed.

But Callum didn’t know. Nobody in the castle knew why Freya had shut herself in the nursery, only that she had. Evander had told no one what happened between them that night. Not one soul.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked slowly.

Ever since Jack put those thoughts in his head, he couldn’t stop wondering if there was something more to it.

There shouldn’t be. Callum was his good friend, his man-at-arms. He had always been there for him. He had encouraged this marriage, saying it would mean something politically.

Callum shrugged, still smiling. “Only that ye’ve changed, me Laird. Ye’re no longer the Wolf we chose to follow.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Evander narrowed his eyes at him

“Nae necessarily.” Callum looked out across the yard, at the MacArthur men and their own men drilling side by side, at the castle walls, at the windows above. Something passed over his face too quickly to name. “I just wish things hadnae changed.”

Evander watched him.

This was the most honest Callum had been in a long time. The most honest and raw. Evander wasn’t sure if he liked it because the things Callum was saying didn’t sit right with him. There was just something about it, something he was unable to put his finger on despite his best efforts to push those feelings away.

Then Callum laughed and clapped him on the shoulder, warm and familiar. “Daenae mind me. I’m a romantic, ye ken. Always thinking of the past.”

Evander didn’t answer. Usually, he could manage a word or two for his best friend, but he couldn’t manage it now.

He was still looking at Callum when a flash of blue caught his eye. He turned before he could stop himself.

Freya was crossing the far side of the yard. She walked quickly, head down, skirts gathered in one hand, and she did not look toward the training ground.