Free Web NovelChapter 258: Chapter 258
Author’s note: Guess who is back on win-win? MEEE!!!
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Freezing cold water splashed violently against Jorrit’s face, jolting him awake with a sharp, ragged gasp. He coughed and spluttered, lungs burning as water ran down his nose and soaked into his clothes. The fabric clung unpleasantly to his skin, the sudden chill seeping deep into his bones and sending a violent shudder through his body.
For a brief, disoriented second, he forgot where he was and instinct took over. He thrashed against his restraints, chains rattling loudly as panic surged.
His struggles ceased abruptly when he became aware of the figures looming over him.
Ragnar stood only a few paces away, his posture relaxed in a way that made his presence there all the more unsettling. His expression was unreadable, just as impenetrable as the stone walls around them. Beside him stood a guard, thick fingers still curled around the handle of an empty bucket.
It left no doubt in Jorrit’s mind who had splashed water on him.
Ragnar took in the pitiful sight Jorrit made—soaked, bound, hair plastered to his face, breaths still uneven. There was no triumph in Ragnar’s eyes, no cruelty either. Only calculation.
"That will be all," Ragnar said at last. "You may wait outside."
The guard hesitated for half a heartbeat, then bowed his head and obeyed. The door creaked open and shut, leaving the two men alone in the dimly lit cell. The silence that followed felt heavier than the chains around Jorrit’s wrists.
"You sleep far too deeply for someone in captivity," Ragnar remarked mildly. "You barely even stirred when we came in."
Jorrit lifted his head and glared up at him, water dripping from his lashes. "Even with all the etiquette lessons they teach the upper class, you all still lack basic decency." He said through clenched teeth.
The disdain in his voice was unmistakable, sharp enough to cut.
Ragnar tilted his head slightly, studying him as one might examine a particularly difficult puzzle.
"How curious that you can feel so strongly about nobles when you are here, prepared to die to protect one."
There was the smallest hitch in Jorrit’s breathing. It was so subtle that most would have missed it.
Ragnar did not.
That was all the confirmation he needed.
So Narfor was nobility. But which house? Which family carried enough influence to operate from the shadows this way?
Ragnar intended to uncover every answer, one by one.
He did not give Jorrit the chance to speak.
"Kylo Elsher," Ragnar drawled instead, enunciating each syllable as though savoring the sound. A low chuckle escaped him when Jorrit’s glare sharpened into something more hostile. "What is that look for? That is your real name, isn’t it? I hope you don’t mind if I use it from now on."
Kylo was a common enough name in Lamora. When Jorrit had offered it so readily, he must have believed it harmless—too small a detail to matter, too ordinary to trace. He could not have known that Ragnar had spent the night buried in ledgers, looking through past accounts and poring over pages of carefully disguised corruption.
One name had appeared again and again, and always near discrepancies in the accounts. Always where the numbers refused to align.
The dignitary’s family owed Narfor a staggering debt, one they had been chipping away at for years. What were the odds that the Kylo mentioned in the ledgers and the one bound in front of him were two different people who just happened to both work for Narfor in some capacity?
Ragnar sometimes believed in coincidences, but this wasn’t one of them.
"Why does that even matter?" Jorrit snapped. "You already have me in chains. At the end of the day, it’s Narfor you want."
"I merely wished to remind you how easy it would be to extract the information I need from you." freewebnσvel.cѳm
Jorrit tested his restraints again, chains clinking sharply in the confined space. Fire burned in his eyes as he continued to stare Ragnar down, defiance etched into every line of his face.
"Weapons supplier," Ragnar said, raising one finger. "Envoy." Another finger. "Debt collector." A third. "With how many roles Narfor has forced upon you, one might think he is woefully short on loyal servants."
Ragnar took a few slow steps closer, boots echoing softly against the stone floor.
"If I did not know better," he continued, "I might even suspect you were Narfor himself. But I do know better and I know that you can’t be him because you are nothing, merely an expendable nobody. No noble in Lamora would ever respect you enough to conduct any form of business."
This was why he was convinced Narfor belonged to the nobility and to a very wealthy family. Only someone of such rank could wield that kind of influence over their peers.
"Why don’t you just kill me," Jorrit spat, his features twisting with fury, "since you know everything already?"
Ragnar stopped directly in front of him.
"What type of magic do his assassins possess?" he asked quietly.
Silence.
Jorrit lifted his chin, lips curling into something almost like a smile. Defiance radiated from him in waves.
"You won’t like what I will do if I have to repeat myself," Ragnar warned, his voice dropping to something dark and lethal.
Jorrit leaned forward as far as his chains would allow, teeth bared in a feral snarl meant to provoke.
"Do your worst," he challenged. "I’m not afraid of you."
A tense second passed after that. Neither of them spoke.
Then the corner of Ragnar’s mouth quirked upward.
That was the only warning Jorrit received.
One moment he was still glaring defiantly at Ragnar, jaw clenched and eyes hard, and in the very next, Ragnar moved. He pulled out a small knife and drove the blade into Jorrit’s thigh without a shred of hesitation. It happened too quickly, faster than the blink of an eye.
A pained grunt tore from Jorrit’s throat. His body jerked violently against his restraints as pain exploded through his leg, white-hot and blinding. His face twisted in agony as he stared at the knife hilt jutting from his flesh, blood already welling up from the wound.
