Circe let out an annoyed huff the mont she realized Ragnar was standing behind her. Without a word, she spun on her heel and strode away from the door, deliberately shoving past him as she went.
Ragnar’s smile faded into a look of disbelief.
Casilo’s lips twitched as he struggled to suppress a grin, while Gonan made no effort to hide his amusent.
" Your wife looked like she was seconds away from slamming the door in my face." Gonan said, a teasing smirk playing on his lips.
" And for once, she would have been justified." Ragnar grumbled, stepping away from the doorway to let them inside before shutting the door behind them.
When he turned back toward the room, he saw that Circe had quietly resud her place on the bed. She sat with her back held straight, an air of quiet composure clinging to her, her legs neatly folded beneath her as if she hadn’t moved at all. It was almost as though she had been there the entire ti, waiting. She watched Gonan and Casilo with that sa wary look she always reserved solely for Ragnar.
" Did sothing happen?" Ragnar asked Gonan. His friend didn’t do anything without a reason and he certainly wouldn’t choose to ride to the palace on a re whim.
The humor practically lted off Gonan’s face. He took a deep breath. " Yes, I guess you can say that. I went to Kezar a few days ago to find Cornelia Biven but I was too late. She’s gone."
" What do you an she’s gone?" Ragnar furrowed his brows. His mood had plumted even far. When he glanced back at Circe, she was fixated on one of the wall carvings, feigning disinterest as she subtly eavesdropped on their conversation.
In her defense, if they didn’t want her to hear their conversation, then they probably shouldn’t keep having it in front of her.
" She’s gone, Ragnar. Gone without a trace and she isn’t even the only one. People have been disappearing from the streets of Kezer for days now and no one is doing anything about it. No one in the capital is even talking about it."
Ragnar was well aware of the disappearances. He spoke about it with his father just a few weeks earlier.
" Does the king know about this?" Casilo asked. His tone was filled with concern.
" Of course he knows." Ragnar scoffed. " I told him myself weeks ago when there were only a small handful of people missing but he swept it to the corner like everything that doesn’t benefit him."
Words like that could easily land him back in a cell but he was long past caring.
" Well, there are a lot more than a handful of people who have gone missing now and it is only going to keep getting worse." Gonan said. " I spoke to one of the locals while I was there. He said sothing about a fog. Each night the fog cos, it engulfs the streets and people caught in it disappear."
" How does a fog cause people to disappear?" Casilo asked.
Ragnar had been wondering the sa thing. None of it made any sense to him either.
"It probably sounds ridiculous because, well, the whole thing is. Kezar and Kemia are both coastal towns. Fogs aren’t exactly unusual there. Most likely, it’s just a bunch of robbers taking advantage of the weather, pretending to be sothing they’re not to scare the locals." Ragnar said, trying to rationalize the situation
Casilo and Gonan shared a look.
Gonan spoke first. " We have to bring this up with the royal court. Let them know how serious the problem is becoming."
" You’ll have to tell them yourself. I have dealt with enough court politics to last a year. If I get involved, the queen will find a way to toss into the fog and honestly, I’ve had enough of her gas." Ragnar said. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help, he was just exhausted. He knew the queen would find a way to twist everything around and turn it against him. That kind of manipulation, that abuse of power, was exactly what Ragnar had grown tired of.
He had played the queen’s gas long enough to know how they ended.
" The princess and I will be riding back to Amris tomorrow and I don’t want to get involved in anything that is bound to keep trapped in the capital longer than I want." Ragnar added, and Circe’s gaze shot up to et his, forgoing her attempts to feign disinterest. Her eyes widened in surprise. He didn’t tell her about his eting with the king or the fact that they would be returning to the manor so he understood her shock. But tangled with the look of surprise on her face was sothing Ragnar could only describe as pure elation.
It made sothing strange stir in the depths of his chest. It was the first ti that she had stared at him with sothing other than loathing and disgust. He wasn’t sure if he liked it or not.
He patted Gonan’s shoulder. His friend disliked the royal court just as much as he did. " You will be fine. All you have to do is smile at the Ladies and use your charms on their husbands and you will have them hanging off your every word."
Unlike Ragnar, Gonan had earned the favor of the courtiers. While Ragnar spent his years away from the capital, leading armies and fighting on distant battlefields, Gonan remained close to the throne, carefully studying the art of politics at his father’s side. He had grown up in the heart of the court, observing its shifting alliances, whispered threats, and false smiles.
Over ti, he learned not just how to survive among them but how to thrive as well. He had mastered every deceitful trick in their arsenal. He knew when to speak and when to stay silent, when to flatter and when to strike. And most importantly, he understood the court’s brutal gas and how to win them.
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