“Are you feeling well?” Yrene asked casually as she hid the books he’d brought back with him that morning.

“Yes.”

She leaned against the desk to study where Chaol sat on the gold couch.

“You have not exercised in a few days.” She angled her head. “The rest of your body, I mean. We should do it now.”

For people accustomed to physical activity every day, going without for so long could feel like ripping an addict off a drug. Disoriented, restless. He’d kept up the exercises for his legs, but the rest … perhaps it was what clawed at him.

“All right.” His eyes were glazed, distant.

“Here, or one of the guards’ training facilities?” She braced herself for the shutdown.

But Chaol just said flatly, “Here is fine.”

She tried again. “Perhaps being around the other guards will be beneficial to—”

“Here is fine.” Then he moved himself onto the floor, sliding his body away from the couch and low-lying table and to the open carpet. “I need you to brace my feet.”

Yrene checked her irritation at the tone, the outright refusal. But she still said as she knelt before him, “Have we really gone back to that place?”

He ignored her question and launched into a series of upward curls, his powerful body surging up, then down. One, two, three … She lost count around sixty.

He didn’t meet her stare each time he rose up over his bent knees.

It was natural, for the emotional healing to be as difficult as the physical. For there to be hard days—hard weeks, even. But he’d been smiling when she’d left him last night, and—

“Tell me what happened. Something happened today.” Her tone was perhaps not quite as gentle as a healer’s ought to be.

“Nothing happened.” The words were a push of air as he kept moving, sweat sliding down the column of his neck and into the white shirt beneath.

Yrene clenched her jaw, counting quietly in her head. Snapping would do neither of them any good.

Chaol eventually turned onto his stomach and began another set that required her to hold his feet in a position that would keep him slightly aloft.

Up and down, down and up. The sleek muscles of his back and arms bunched and rippled.

He went through six other exercises, then started the entire set again.

Yrene supported and held and watched in simmering silence.

Let him have his space. Let him think through it, if that’s what he wants.

Damn what he wants.

Chaol finished a set, his breathing ragged, chest heaving as he stared up at the ceiling.

Something sharp and driving flickered across his face, as if in silent answer to something. He lurched upward to begin the next set—

“That’s enough.”

His eyes flashed, meeting hers at last.

Yrene didn’t bother looking pleasant or understanding. “You’ll do yourself an injury.”

He glared toward where she had stabilized his bent knees and curled upward again. “I know my limits.”

“And so do I,” she snapped, jerking her chin toward his legs. “You might hurt your back if you keep this up.”

He bared his teeth—the temper vicious enough that she let go of his feet. His arms shot out to brace him as he slid backward, but she lunged, grabbing for his shoulders to keep him from slamming to the ground.

His sweat-drenched shirt soaked into her fingers, his breathing rasping in her ear as she confirmed he wasn’t about to fall. “I’ve got it,” he growled in her ear.

“Forgive me if I don’t take your word for it,” she snipped, assessing for herself that he indeed could support himself before she withdrew and settled herself a few feet away on the carpet.

In silence, they glared at each other. “Exercising your body is vital,” Yrene said, her words clipped, “but you will do more harm than good if you push yourself too hard.”

“I’m fine.”

“You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”

Chaol’s face was a hard mask, sweat sliding down his temple.

“This was your sanctuary,” she said, gesturing to his honed body, the sweat on him. “When things got hard, when they went wrong, when you were upset or angry or sad, you would lose yourself in the training. In sweating until it burned your eyes, in practicing until your muscles were shaking and begging you to stop. And now you can’t—not as you once did.”

Ire boiled in his face at that.

She kept her own face cool and hard as she asked, “How does that make you feel?”

His nostrils flared. “Don’t think you can provoke me into talking.”

“How does it feel, Lord Westfall?”

“You know how it feels, Yrene.”

“Tell me.”

When he refused to answer, she hummed to herself. “Well, since you seem determined to get a complete exercise routine in, I might as well work your legs a bit.”

His stare was a brand. She wondered if he could sense the tightness that now clamped down on her chest, the pit that opened in her stomach as he remained quiet.

But Yrene rose up on her knees and moved down his body, beginning the series of exercises designed to trigger pathways between his mind and spine. The ankle and foot rotations, he could do on his own, though he certainly gritted his teeth after the tenth set.

But Yrene pushed him through it. Ignored his bubbling anger, keeping a saccharine smile on her face while she coaxed his legs through the movements.

It was only when she reached for his upper thighs that Chaol halted her with a hand on her arm.

He met her stare—then looked away, jaw tight, as he said, “I’m tired. It’s late. Let’s meet tomorrow morning.”

“I don’t mind starting now with the healing.” Perhaps with the exercising, those wrecked pathways might be firing up more than usual.

“I want some rest.”

It was a lie. Despite his exercising, he had good color in his face, his eyes were still bright with anger.

She weighed his expression, the request. “Resting doesn’t seem at all like your style.”

His lips tightened. “Get out.”

Yrene snorted at the order. “You may command men and servants, Lord Westfall, but I don’t answer to you.” Still, she uncoiled to her feet, having had quite enough of his attitude. Bracing her hands on her hips, she stared at where he remained sprawled on the carpet. “I’ll have food sent in. Things to help pack on the muscle.”