Free Web NovelChapter 71: Chapter 71
"You’ve done worse, I’m sure," Ragnar retorted coolly as he regarded the man in front of him.
Behind him, Casilo’s hand hovered near the hilt of his sword, his fingers twitching with unease the moment Arius took a step closer.
Arius halted when his pitch-black eyes shifted to Casilo, who was standing just a few paces away. His gaze lingered, then dropped, observing the way Casilo’s grip tightened around the weapon in a silent warning.
"I see you brought along your little soldier," Arius said to Ragnar, his voice laced with hints of mockery. His focus returned to Casilo, lips curling into a smirk. "Go on then, draw your sword. Let’s see how far you get before I rip your heart out of your chest."
There was something unnerving about Arius’s presence. His eyes, those terrifying, soulless pools of darkness resembled Ragnar’s back in the arena, only now they looked worse. With Ragnar, Casilo knew what he was dealing with. Arius, however, wasn’t just a powerful demon, he was also unpredictable, and that alone was enough to make him dangerous.
He radiated an eerie, almost primal awareness. Ragnar felt it too, he felt it in the thundering of his own pulse, and the cold that crept into his fingers, blanching them. It was both unnatural and unsettling. One did not need to be told what Arius was. A single moment in his presence was enough to alert anyone to the truth that they were standing in the midst of a predator.
A dark aura clung to Arius, as though it were stitched into his very skin. It wasn’t just magic or power, it was an essence designed to unsettle, to draw out the hidden fears of anyone nearby and magnify them.
Demons, by nature, were elusive. Most remained deep within Innermost, rarely venturing out. Those who did often wore human masks, slipping into society unnoticed to feed. But Arius was different. He didn’t hide, he didn’t even try to.
He was the first pure-blooded demon Ragnar had ever come to know, and it often left him wondering what he might have become had he not been a half-blood himself. Would his very presence have been this unsettling? This brutal?
Ragnar understood what Casilo was feeling. He could see it in the taut lines of his friend’s shoulders and the tension that lined his face. Without turning his gaze away from Arius, Ragnar lifted a hand and gestured for Casilo to stand down.
Casilo’s hand dropped from his sword, but his eyes remained sharp, his body still poised to react to any perceived threat.
"I don’t need you intimidating the people around me," Ragnar said, voice hardening. "I do that quite well on my own."
When Arius still refused to back down, Ragnar’s tone sharpened further. "Don’t forget what I’m paying you to do."
"Ah, yes," Arius murmured, his smirk widening into a crooked, wolfish smile. "How could I possibly forget about the wild goose chase you sent me on?" The derision in his voice was unmistakable.
"Then you also remember how replaceable you and your services are." Ragnar’s tone was calm but laced with warning. "You’re not special, Arius. And for the kind of coin I’m offering, I’m sure I could find another demon eager to take your place. You weren’t exactly difficult to find, after all."
Arius’s smile vanished, his expression twisting in a flash of cold anger. The change was so abrupt, it might have scared a lesser man but not Ragnar. He had seen and lived through much worse.
"What have you found?" Ragnar asked, the edge of impatience returning to his voice.
Arius’s lips curled into something between irritation and disdain. "Whoever sent the last tip was clearly trying to mislead you. There’s no trace of Leonora Sealey in Azaire. No records, no whispers, no signs at all that she ever lived there. If she did, she erased herself completely."
Tracking demons required the skill of another demon. Those who left Innermost knew how to vanish, how to blend into the world without leaving a trace. That was where Arius came in. He was a tracker, a hunter. For the right price, he could find anyone. He had never failed a task before.
Not until now.
There was only one person who consistently slipped through his fingers. No matter how close he got, she always managed to disappear. frёewebnoѵēl.com
Leonora Sealey.
Ragnar’s mother.
Her trail vanished at every turn, and the deeper Arius dug, the more convinced Ragnar became that "Leonora Sealey" was nothing more than an alias. Either that, or she changed her name frequently, so often that not even a demon as skilled as Arius could keep up. And that made the search nearly impossible.
Ragnar looked pensive, his jaw tightening as memories crept to the surface. He had been searching for his mother for years, chasing lead after lead only for each one to collapse into dust. So many dead ends, so many false hopes. He didn’t even feel surprised anymore. If anything, this latest failure barely stung. freewebnøvel.coɱ
It was as if she didn’t want to be found.
Leonora Sealey.
A name, and a locket. That was it. Those were all he had of her. The only things she had left him. The only things she had deemed him worthy of.
His eyes dropped to the ground as a heavy sigh escaped his lips. He should have accepted it by now. He should have given up. Everything pointed to the truth: she was gone, and she wanted it to remain that way.
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t let it go.
Ragnar needed answers. He needed to hear it from her lips, to understand the reasoning behind it all. Why she left. Why he was so easy to abandon. Why she had disappeared without a trace and never once looked back.
He wanted to believe there was a reason. He needed to believe it. Even if that belief was the only thing keeping his hope alive.
