Chapter 20

Ragnar 

  The council chamber had become unbearable, but not because of the noise. There was always noise,voices layered over voices, men arguing policy while pretending it wasn’t ambition, chairs scraping against stone floors, and papers shifting from one hand to another like control could be measured in parchment.

I had spent years functioning inside that noise without difficulty.

Now every conversation sounded dishonest.

By the time the final meeting ended that evening, I already knew what I was going to do. I just hated that I had to do it this way.

I waited until the corridors outside my study emptied before sending for Davan.

When he arrived, he closed the door quietly behind himself and crossed the room without speaking. He took one look at my face and understood immediately that this was not official business.

“What happened?” he asked.

I stood near the fire with a sealed envelope in my hand, turning it once between my fingers before answering.

“I cannot leave the capital.”

Davan’s expression didn’t change, but his attention sharpened slightly.

“You already knew that,” he said carefully.

“Yes.” My jaw tightened. “I also know the council is waiting for me to try.”

The fire cracked softly between us.

If I rode to Thornfield openly, the council would invoke succession law before I even reached the border roads. They would frame it exactly the way they wanted, the King interfering personally in a disputed inheritance claim.

And once that happened, they could legally remove me from ritual authority entirely.

Which meant Freya would be left in their hands without even the limited protection my position still gave her.

“So I need another option,” I looked down at the letter again as I said.

“Is this what I think it is?” Davan’s eyes moved to the envelope. “You’re sending a message.”

“Yes.”

“To her.”

It wasn’t a question, and I didn't bother answering. Instead, I crossed the room and handed it to him. There was no royal seal pressed into the wax. No crest and no insignia tying it officially to me.

Just plain dark wax over folded paper.

“You’ll take it yourself,” I said. “No guards or royal escort, and no travel record. I don't want this getting out either.”

Davan accepted the letter carefully. “You trust me that much?”

“I trust almost no one that much,” I corrected and a faint flicker crossed his face at that. Not amusement exactly, but something close.

“When do I leave?” he asked after a couple of seconds. 

“Tonight.”

He nodded once without hesitation, but before he could turn away, his gaze returned to the envelope.

“Can I ask something?” When I nodded, he added. “What’s in it?”

For a moment, I considered lying. Then I exhaled slowly and sat down behind the desk instead.

“The truth,” I said.

Davan went still obviously waiting for details, while I leaned back slightly, staring past him toward the dark windows.

“It took me three attempts to write the damned thing.”

“The first version sounded like a royal decree,”His brow lifted faintly, but he didn't interrupt as I admitted. “It was cold, formal,like I was speaking to someone beneath me.”

“And the second?”

I laughed once under my breath, though there was no humor in it.

“The second sounded like a man trying too hard to explain himself.”

“The third one,” Davan said nothing as I continued quietly, “I wrote quickly before I could ruin it.”

The room fell silent again and this time, my eyes drifted toward the fire as memory pressed hard against the inside of my skull.

Lyra.

I still remembered the first time she became too tired to finish a meal. At the time, it had seemed insignificant. I quickly narrowed it down to a long week of stress and that she was probably exhausted.

Then came the fevers, then the heaviness in her chest, then the slow fading that no healer ever truly explained.

I had believed them when they called it illness.

That was the part I could not forgive myself for now, not that she died,but that I sat beside her while it happened and never realized she had been dying because of us. Because of choices made long before she ever entered this palace.

My fingers tightened once against the arm of the chair.

“The symptoms matched mine,” I said quietly and Davan didn’t interrupt.

“The same exhaustion, the same fever.” I swallowed against the bitterness rising in my throat. “And suddenly the council’s explanations stopped sounding convincing.”

“They knew,” Understanding settled slowly across his face as he said.

“Yes.” The word came out flat.

I stood again abruptly and crossed toward the window. Outside, the capital glowed gold beneath the night sky, beautiful in the distance and rotten underneath.

“The bloodline needed stability,” I said. “Not political stability, but biological.”

I could barely stand the word.

“They needed ancient blood tied back into the line.” My reflection stared back at me from the dark glass. “And they sealed Freya precisely to prevent that from happening naturally.”

“So Lyra…” Davan stopped carefully.

“Was never meant to survive this long.” I finished for him, and the silence after that felt enormous.

I pressed a hand briefly against my chest as the familiar ache flared again beneath my ribs. It was no longer sharp, but steady, and that was worse. 

“They let her die,” I said softly. “Because admitting the truth would have exposed everything.”

Davan looked angrier than I had seen him in years.

“And Freya?” he asked.

“It's simple.” I closed my eyes briefly. “She deserves the truth before the council twists it into something else.”

When I opened my eyes again, I turned back toward him. “She also deserves to understand why I cannot go to her myself.”

Davan’s jaw tightened slightly. “Will she care about the distinction?”

“No,” I said honestly. “And she shouldn’t.”

I crossed back toward the desk and rested my hand against the letter. “But I need her to know I am not doing nothing.”

For a moment neither of us spoke. Then Davan asked quietly, “What exactly did you write to her?”

I stared at the envelope for a long time before answering.

“The truth about Lyra,” I said. “About the council.”

“And about you?” That question landed harder than I expected, so I looked away first.

At the very end of the letter, after everything else had already been said, I had written the one thing I could no longer justify hiding.

I spoke the words aloud now, quietly enough that they almost disappeared into the firelight.

“I did not reject you because I felt nothing.” My throat tightened slightly around the sentence. “I rejected you because the last time I let myself feel, I failed to protect her and I did not even understand why she was dying until it was too late.”

Davan stayed completely still.

“I told myself keeping you at a distance would keep you safe.” I laughed once bitterly. “Turns out I was wrong about that too.”

“And then?”The room felt strangely airless suddenly but Davan asked anyway. 

“I apologized.” I looked down at the seal pressed beneath my thumb.

Something unreadable crossed his face at that.

“Do you think she’ll forgive you?” he asked quietly.

“No.” The answer came instantly,and for the first time in a very long time, I found I didn’t need comforting lies around the truth.

I met his gaze steadily. “But she deserved honesty anyway.”