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“Callum?” A chill ran down his spine. “I never sent him, Brigid.”

Brigid went pale. “But he said⁠—”

“I ken what he said, but I never sent him,” Evander muttered. “He told me that he was going to the north wall.”

“The north wall? But me Laird⁠—”

“If ye’re pointing out the north wall is in the opposite direction, I’m aware.” He took a breath. “Take the bairns to the kitchens, as ye planned to. Stay there and daenae let them out of yer sight.”

“Me Laird, what’s happening?” Brigid asked, a tremor in her voice.

He didn’t answer. He was already running towards the stairs to the nursery.

Two lies in one morning, each an easy one to uncover. A man only lied that carelessly when he no longer cared whether he was caught. Or when he didn’t expect to answer for it afterward.

Evander took the stairs three at a time, his heart hammering against his ribs.

Hold on, Freya. Just hold on.

The thought of losing her hit him harder than any blow he’d ever taken.

Halfway up the stairs, he heard her scream.

What a fool he had been. Callum had been his right hand for twelve years. He had dragged him out of a burning byre at Lochaber and sat with him through the fever that followed. He had been the first to say ye should lead us when the war band was nothing but tired men with nowhere to go.

A man didn’t turn on a friend like that over a wife and two bairns.

Evander couldn’t believe it, and yet his feet continued to carry him through all of this. Up each stair, one after the other. All he could think about was getting to his wife and making sure she was safe. If Callum did something to her, he would kill him where he stood. The man likely knew that.

He might almost be counting on it.

“Evander!” she screamed again.

The terror in it was enough to make his stomach sink.

Twelve years of war went through him at once, firing up his nerves and speeding his thoughts. He didn’t think. He didn’t need to. He took the last three steps in a single stride and hit the nursery door with his shoulder. The latch tore out of the old wood with a crack, like a broken bone.

The door slammed hard against the wall.

He saw it all in one heartbeat, the way he always saw a field before a charge. The cradles, empty. Late sun through the window. Freya backed against the wall beside it with a rag doll clutched in one fist and her chin up, white to the lips and furious.

Chin lifted, eyes blazing, she was the fiercest, loveliest thing he’d ever seen.

Callum, standing three paces from her, his sword raised, turned toward the door with an expression Evander would remember for the rest of his life.

Not fear. Not guilt.

Joy. As though he had been waiting for this moment the entire time. As though he wanted Evander to see Freya reach the end of her life by his sword.

Evander’s mind reeled, even as his body remained ready for anything.

Callum. The man he had considered his best friend for years, the man he had trusted enough to make him his man-at-arms, was now holding a blade to Freya’s throat.

Callum always used to say I’ve got yer back. Evander would chuckle and respond that he would always have his back as well. And he had kept that promise a hundred times over. They had shared hunger, bread, bedrolls, and grief. After Evander had been banished, Callum had been there at his side.

How did a man go from that to this?

Evander searched his memory for the moment everything had changed. Had Callum jested less and grown more bitter as of late? Had he gone quiet at the table when Freya entered the hall or found reasons to be elsewhere when the twins were brought down?