Free Web NovelChapter 175: Chapter 175
"Why can’t you tell me?" she demanded.
Circe stared at the man in front of her, brows furrowed and eyes narrowed in frustration. None of what Jayran was saying made sense, and the fact that he seemed almost amused by her confusion only irritated her further.
"What exactly am I supposed to ask him?" she pressed.
Jayran exhaled sharply and cast his eyes heavenward, as though appealing to some celestial force for patience. "How does the princess of Westeria not know the reason her own kingdom went to war?" he muttered under his breath, more to the empty air than to her.
His tone was so dry she couldn’t tell if he was genuinely pained or merely entertained by her ignorance.
"It’s clear no one bothered to tell you," he continued, now studying her with a mixture of disbelief and something like pity. "I’m sure Ragnar would have, but perhaps even he isn’t aware of how oblivious you are to the matter. The fact that you didn’t know was baffling to begin with. How is it that I managed to figure it out after only minutes of speaking to you, yet my brother hasn’t after months of marriage?" ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
He fell silent for a moment, the astonishment draining from his face until all that remained was a grim, resolute seriousness.
"I want you to go to Ragnar," Jayran said, his eyes suddenly hard. "Ask him what happened to Iliana Tavish, qHairan’s betrothed. I’m telling you to get your answers from him because aside from my father and Laheir, Ragnar is the only one who can give you a full, unfiltered account of what happened. It won’t change the past, but I can’t, in good conscience, leave you in the dark as your father evidently has."
The words struck her like stones.
Despite all the friction the war had caused between them, Circe and Ragnar had never explicitly spoken about it. She had avoided the topic with stubborn determination. How could she not? Ragnar had been the one who led the charge that conquered her homeland. Discussing it with him felt like reopening a wound that had only just begun to scab over. She had clung to the comfort of silence, fearful of the pain that conversation would bring.
But now more questions were emerging, and they loomed too large to ignore.
Ragnar was not in their room when she returned, nor was he with Casilo. So she searched for him, through the halls, down the lantern-lit corridors, past servants who bowed as she passed. Her heart pounded with every step, heavy with dread and anticipation.
When she reached his study, she knocked three times on the thick wooden door and waited. A moment later, she heard his voice call for her to enter.
She pushed the door open and froze.
Instead of being seated behind his desk as she expected, Ragnar stood in the middle of the room as though he had already been on his way to open the door.
He smiled, his eyes softening at the sight of her.
He must have seen something written on her face, because his brows knit together almost instantly. He stepped forward, took her by the hand, and gently pulled her inside, shutting the door behind her with his free hand.
"I just had a very puzzling conversation with Prince Jayran," Circe admitted softly. The quiet of the room pressed in around them, amplifying the tension.
Her gaze flicked from his face to where his hand still wrapped around hers, then back up again. She exhaled shakily, her pulse racing beneath her skin.
"I want you to be candid with me, Ragnar."
Ragnar reached up and cupped the side of her neck with a tenderness that almost broke her. His thumb brushed lightly over her racing pulse, as though trying to steady it.
Her heart hammered so fiercely in her chest that she wouldn’t have been surprised if he could hear each frantic beat.
"What did Jayran tell you?" he asked, voice low. He had not expected Circe and Jayran to encounter each other so soon, much less to speak privately. The worry edging his tone was unmistakable.
He didn’t like the lost look in her eyes, and he desperately wanted to know what Jayran had said to put it there.
"He told me about a Lamorian woman who was killed by soldiers from my kingdom," she said honestly. "I have never heard of such a thing. He mentioned the war but he spoke in fragments and was being quite vague about it."
She swallowed, her voice trembling as she continued, "He also told me to ask you about Hairan’s betrothed. Why would he say that?"
She had pieced together enough to know that whoever this woman was, her death was tied to the war in some way and she didn’t understand how. Jayran’s expression at the end of the conversation had been too grave for it to be anything trivial.
Now, as she stared up at Ragnar, she saw something shift in his face. A tightening around his eyes, and tension settling at his jaw.
His lips parted, and when he spoke, the words struck her like a blow.
"Iliana Tavish was the daughter of Laheir, my father’s chief advisor," Ragnar said quietly. "She was murdered by soldiers under Prince Torben’s command. She sought them out for help after her carriage and guards were attacked by a pack of wild animals. Instead of helping her, they slaughtered her and disposed of her body near Lamora’s southern border." freeweɓnøvel.com
Circe’s legs nearly gave out beneath her. She would have stumbled backward had Ragnar not tightened his hold on her arm.
She had never heard any of this.
Her mouth went dry. Her thoughts spun wildly. She wanted to call him a liar, to deny every word, to insist that her people could not have done something so monstrous.
But she couldn’t.
Because deep in her soul—in the part of her that instinctively knew when she was being lied to—she knew Ragnar was telling the truth.
