Page 113 of The Thornwyck Rose

He licked his cracked lips. His chest hammered with breath that didn’t seem to come fast enough. He thought his ribs might split. His arm spasmed; his vision blurred. Exhaustion was fighting back against the surge he was using to stand.

“Still, Payen—did he hit you in the head too hard?This is Castel Thornwyck, and you are disobeying my order. Shall I bring your whelp up to remind you who gives the orders here?”

“Ragnar is dead,” Seren said behind him.

His son’s name echoed in his skull, a hollow, ringing ache.

“What?” Henry and Erik said, their gazes snapping to her.

Erik faltered at the knees.

The words replayed in his ears.

Ragnar. Dead.

He staggered. His legs quivered beneath his weight. A sound broke from him—half-breath, half-plea—as if denial were trying to claw its way out of him. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. Seren didn’t look at him. She kept her eyes fixed on Henry. Erik’s brow furrowed as she spoke again.

“Half a year ago, Ragnar died,” she repeated, with a voice too calm for the words she said. “We buried him with the souls in Mortlande, beside his mother’s ashes.”

Erik’s heavy breath turned uneven. He saw his boy in flashes—bare feet on rushes, soft laughter. To never hold him again. To never see him take a wife, hold his own child—everything he had done to keep Ragnar alive—every compromise, every wound, every surrender—all in vain.

The keep held its breath.

The axe twitched in Erik’s hand.

Henry took a half step back.

Erik’s face twisted—grief detonating into rage. He turned toward Henry, ready to strike, but Seren’s voice cut through him.

“Now, Lord Henry, see if your two decades of cultivating loyalty in this savage have paid off.” She lifted her chin, holy and dangerous in the same breath. “Is he still loyal to the souls in this keep—the home he has guarded for so long—or will he try to take your life?”

Erik paused.

What was she doing?

Telling him not to kill Henry?

Had she lied about Ragnar? She’d called him a savage. She’d never do that.

Was Ragnar alive and hidden, protected?

Was she buying time?

Planning something?

She was kneeling—about to lose her own life. What plan could she possibly have?

He stared at Henry, breath shaking and mind racing.

He twirled the axe in his hand—blade up, then down—caught between vengeance and restraint, between the urge to kill and the woman who had just shattered his world with a single sentence.

Seren’s words shifted the air of the hall. The guards hesitated. The servants’ eyes flicked between lord and commander as if weighing which of them God favored—false piety or the pagan.

Erik’s grip tightened on the axe. The entire hall froze in the brittle moment.

Henry seemed to feel the hesitation, the shifting loyalty, and the danger he’d created with his own threats. A muscle ticked in his jaw. His voice cut with panicked fury buried under it.

“Enough,” he snapped, voice cracking with fear wearing authority’s mask. “You will not mock me in my own hall.”