The next morning, Saga woke up from the rustling of armour. Sitting up in bed and rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she saw Viggo already fully dressed and ready to take care of his duties for the day.

"What time is it?" Saga yawned as her eyes drifted to the window. Though the sky had started to brighten it looked as though there was still quite some time until the sun would rise.

"It's still early," Viggo answered and walked over to sit on her side of the bed. "You should try to get some more sleep."

She nodded, though she doubted she would be able to. "Why are you already up?"

"I have quite a bit to see to, having been away for a while."

Those words were like a bucket of cold water poured over Saga. It was because of her, because of their marriage, he had been away. So she held blame for why he now needed to work harder than normal.

"Rest more," he told her again before gently pressing his lips to her forehead. An action which only served to emphasize the guilt swirling in her. "I will be busy for most of the day, so will likely not see you again until dinner. But if there is anything, you will find me, or someone who knows where I am, at the training grounds."

He then left her, and she fell back down on the bed with her eyes tightly shut. The kindness she craved, the kindness he gave, ate at her as much as it warmed. A part of her wished he would get angry with her over something. Anger she knew how to deal with. Anger felt like a friend. But all of this kindness was becoming too much.

And not just his kindness.

Both Astrid and Kare had in their ways been nice to her the evening before. Had seemed to accept her without any hesitation as a new part of their familiar space. And Kai had been as sweet as ever. A ray of sunshine, whose warmth she was more than happy to soak up.

But she hadn't done anything to deserve any of it, and that had to change before they all realised it. The day before, she had promised herself to be the best wife to Viggo. Now she knew she needed to do more than that. She needed to be the best lady Sinkbek could have asked for.

Which, to start with, meant that she had no business sleeping in while everyone had already started their day.

She got out of the bed and wrapped a robe around herself before pulling the string Erna had pointed out to her the day before. It didn't take long before the chamberlain entered the room.

"You're already awake, Lady Saga? The Lord said you were still resting," Erna greeted her.

"Oh no, I'm awake," Saga smiled at her and ensured her voice sounded lighter than she felt.

"Then I'll bring you breakfast if you just give me a moment, milady."

Not long after, Saga had quickly eaten a bit of food and got dressed. With few options regarding clothes, she had put on the dress she had travelled there in, which had been washed since the previous day. Then she, together with Erna, went to walk around the castle and its grounds.

The castle had only three floors, and it was easy enough for Saga to quickly grasp it all. The place was significantly smaller than her father's estate after all. Everywhere inside, it was the same with the bareness of the castle, and though Saga liked it, she knew if they were to have guests, they would feel differently. As such she made a note to herself to fix a few of the guest bedrooms as well as the entrance and the great hall. Nothing particularly extravagant or anything, simply just give it all a bit more colour.

The garden was as she had gathered. All run down with weeds and such, but she could see a lot of potential. From what she knew of gardening, it would likely be good if she made the plans for it quite soon. Summer was reaching its end, and if they planted things before winter, it would blossom nicely when spring came.

They went further around the castle, and a long and low building appeared next to what was the training grounds for the knights.

With how early Saga had started walking around, she definitely had time to stop by there for a bit and make Kai smile with her mere presence. And she knew she would never turn down a chance to have his sun shine on her.

The training ground was oval in shape with a stone wall all around it. When you first entered, there was a path along the edge, wide enough for two people to walk side by side with a stone wall which reached Saga's chest. At four places in the wall were openings to a couple of steps leading down to the actual training grounds.

As they entered the area, all the knights were along the wall of the grounds, apart from two who circled each other in the middle. Neither of them had their helmets on, so Saga had no problem recognising one of them as Audun and the other as the friend and fellow squire Kai had introduced her to, Evind.

When their swords hit one another with the resounding clash of metal against metal, which caused Saga to flinch, Kai noticed her presence, and didn't hesitate to rush from the place he had been seated to watch the fight and to her side. He walked up the steps on the opposite side of where she had entered, and as he walked around to her, she kept her eyes on his brightness instead of the fight.

"You came!" he exclaimed as he stood by her, and Saga felt relief over turning her side to the fight to block it from her sight some more. Though, the sounds of the swords were enough to make her body tremble slightly. "It's too bad you didn't come earlier. Then you would have got to see me fight. Maybe sir Audun would be up for another match though after this one."

"Why..." A particularly loud sound from the fight made Saga tense. "Why are you fighting?"

"When we are to become knights, sir Viggo has a test for us. One of them is to land a hit on him before the sand in an hourglass has run out. So we who are old enough to soon try are just practising," Kai explained.

"And why practise with sir Audun and not the Lord himself?"

"We're not allowed to. The commander says it doesn't prove anything if we've practised too much with him. So we get to pick from the other knights, and sir Audun's style of fighting is the one closest to the commander's."

Another clash sounded, followed by a gasp of pain. Turning her eyes to the training grounds, Saga saw the squire kneeling down on the ground clutching his side. Her eyes widened, and her hand went to cover her mouth to stop the sound which wanted to escape her. A hand which grew warmer than the rest of her.

"You needn't worry, Lady Saga," Kai said, drawing her attention to him again. He had a smile on his lips, but his eyes didn't radiate as they usually did. Instead they had a softness to them. "The swords are dulled so we won't get seriously injured. Just scrapes and bruises, which will either heal on their own, or we can always ask the mage to heal us later."

She nodded and swallowed down her shock. But her body trembled worse than before while her hands warmed even more, the presence of the fight enough for it to interpret the moment as dangerous.

"I... I need to go and tend to other things," she mumbled as her eyes fell to the ground, knowing fully well the boy would likely be disappointed by not getting to show off his own skills. But Saga also felt certain she wouldn't be able to watch it. Was certain the warmth would spread all over her body if she tried.

"Of course," Kai answered, his voice sounding as upbeat as ever, but she didn't dare look up at him anyway. "You must have plenty to see to."

"Are you feeling cold, milady?" Erna asked as they left the training grounds.

"A little," Saga answered, using the excuse for how she knew her body trembled.

"Well, you've seen everything outside now, so we can head back in. Would you want a bit of tea to warm you up?"

"That would be lovely. And are there any books on plants in the library?" If she wanted to fix the garden, it was best if she did a bit of research about what plants would be best. Being further up north, the climate was harsher here than at Fyris, so Saga suspected she couldn't use her knowledge of what flowers her father had grown when deciding what to plant in the garden.

"That..." Erna frowned a bit. "I do not know unfortunately, milady."

"I'll just have a look then."

She was still looking over the bookshelves by the time Erna came to the library with some tea. It was quite the impressive collection of books in there with all the walls covered in shelves, but as she read the different titles, there didn't seem to be any order to how they were placed. As such, she had to read through all of them to find which held information about plants.

Her tea cooled while she looked, but all she could find was a book on medicinal herbs, which explained plants' various uses. Nothing in there seemed to tell her what plants would thrive in Sinkbek's climate.

When it was time for lunch, she returned to the bedroom. The food, a stew, proved as delicious as everything else she had eaten there so far.

Then after lunch, Erna brought her to one of the rooms on the bottom floor to meet with the seamstress.

The appointment had Saga's head swimming with information and impression by the end of it.

The seamstress showed her dress after dress, hats after hats, shoes after shoes, claiming all of it was the latest fashion in the capital. Some of the dresses were quite nice, like one with a vest to frame her figure. While other things were far too extravagant and impractical for Saga's liking, like a cone shaped hat.

When the time came for Saga to make a decision about what clothing she wanted, she had no idea what to say.

"May I consider things for a bit?" she asked, as she removed a hat, which laid flat on her head, but had fabrics flowing down her back to her waist.

"Certainly, milady," the seamstress answered. "Take all the time you need. And we can make seasonal appointments, so you can always stay up to date with the latest fashion."

Saga forced a smile at the suggestion while a headache grew at the mere thought of meeting with the seamstress again.

It had become late enough in the day, that it was time for her to get ready for dinner. She picked one of the other three dresses Viggo had bought her and let Erna get her ready.

Her headache increased in strength as she got her hair made into a braid. It had started as a low humming thud against the side of her head, but grew to a persistent drumming and spread to her forehead as well.

During the dinner, she was seated with the same people as before, minus that Hrafen wasn't present, something Viggo explained as that the mage rarely ate with them and likely only had the day before because it was her first meal with them.

Saga answered politely when dragged into conversations, and smiled when it was appropriate. But by the time the dinner ended, she felt as though her head was about to split in two.

"Is anything the matter?" Viggo asked her when they were alone in the comforts of their bedroom.

"Everything is fine," she answered through her pain. "Simply just a lot of new things."

"I heard you were up early. You ought to rest more."

"I'm fine," Saga insisted.

The following day, she rose as Viggo left again. She had asked Erna to call for someone who could help with fixing the garden, and before dinner the previous day, she had been told they would arrive in the morning.

While sleeping, the headache had subsided, though she still felt it like a humming on her sides.

The appointment with the merchant regarding the garden lasted much longer than Saga had anticipated.

At first he showed her small models of different fountains they could get. Then a book filled with drawings of different flowers. Following that, he talked her ears off giving his suggestions while they walked around the garden. And while she had lunch, the man made a sketch for her of how he envisioned it, which he then explained in detail to her.

The sketch included a fountain, statues at the entrance, stone benches with delicate patterns on the backrest, bushes and flowers and trees. Much, much more than what Saga had thought the garden needed herself. But she didn't know things like this. Surely the merchant had seen more gardens than her and knew better what was fit for the garden belonging to a lord like Viggo. The worst which could happen was that she decided on something and it didn't turn out good, after all. So maybe she should simply listen to the merchant.

Like she had asked the seamstress for some time to think, she asked the merchant for the same. Then she sat the rest of the afternoon and tried to make some decisions about either things. But as soon as she thought in one direction, her mind would tell her "what if" and her thoughts would stray down the opposite path, only to be jolted back by another "what if".

And the headache didn't help. It grew until it felt as if a hammer was hitting the inside of her head over and over, and it made her incapable of coming to any decision.