“A fox?”
“Aye.”
“When I was a boy, I tried.”
“And?”
“It escaped.”
Jamie brightened. “Then I like it.”
Frederick inclined his head. “That seems disloyal.”
Jamie shrugged. “I like things that run fast.”
Iona smiled despite herself.
The path curved then through a stand of trees where the light fell in broken patterns across the ground. For a while no one spoke. Jamie wandered only a few paces ahead, balancing along the low line of stones edging the path and pretending not to notice that both adults watched.
Iona kept her gaze forward, but her mind had begun to turn inward in that dangerous, uncertain way it did when something good lingered too long.
This is not safety, she reminded herself. This is only a morning. A walk. A castle can still become a cage if I am foolish.
And yet.
Frederick had asked her to come.
He had not pushed or cornered, nor had he spoken of obligation every second breath.
He was trying.
The thought was almost more unsettling than if he had remained exactly the same.
“Ye are very quiet,” he said beside her.
She looked up. “I could say the same of ye.”
“I am walking.”
“That is nae an explanation.”
“It was nae meant to be.”
She huffed a small laugh and shook her head.
Ahead of them, Jamie had found a fallen branch and was now dragging it through the grass like a sword.
Frederick watched the child for a moment, then said, “He is less afraid today.”
The quiet certainty in his voice made something in her chest soften.
“Aye,” she said. “He is.”
And so am I, though I do not know what to do with that.She had barely admitted it to herself.
The morning stretched around them, mild and bright, and for the first time in longer than she cared to name, Iona allowed herself to feel the shape of what could have been trust and almost peace… and she feared it all the same.
Dinner that evening felt louder than it ought to have been.