Chapter 835
"Years have passed," Ragnar began, his voice deep, "since we last locked blades with the people of Björn."
He paused, his jaw tightening as the memory darkened his eyes. "A war that cost us our most brilliant leaders, my own mother and father." Despite his stoic reputation, his voice wavered, the raw ache of personal loss cutting through his regal composure.
"Yet, through their profound sacrifices and the grace of the Moon Goddess, we emerged victorious. We drove our enemies back beyond our borders, and in our triumph, we even secured new lands to call our own."
He swept his gaze across the assembled councilors, meeting their eyes one by one, his expression hardening with a grim intensity. "But in winning that war, we paid a price far greater than blood or territory. We lost something of inestimable value, a spiritual tether that marked our great kingdom as one of the beloved children of the Goddess."
Ragnar rose from his throne, the heavy mantle of kingship shifting with his movement. He reached to his hip and drew his sword. As his grip tightened, the blade responded to his will, it began to hum with a low, resonant frequency before erupting in a brilliant, pale white radiance, casting long, spectral shadows against the chamber walls.
"You all know our history," Ragnar began, his voice filled with reverence. "You know how the war with the people of Björn began. We would not stand here today, in a kingdom forged in victory, had it not been for the Goddess’s early intervention. Despite the ancient laws prohibiting the divine from direct meddling in mortal affairs, she went to great lengths to warn us of an enemy targeting our kingdom."
He gestured with the glowing blade, the light dancing in his eyes. "She did this through the grace of the great god of Nature and Curses. It was this who provided the two divine armaments that guided our defense, the very weapons bestowed upon my parents, which served them until their final breath."
Ragnar held the sword aloft, its hum filling the silence of the room. "The blade in my hand, passed to me by my father, is known as the Purification Blade. Its twin was the Hopeless Armament, a shield that could protect everything behind its expansive reach, yet possessed the terrifying ability to collapse and morph into heavy gauntlets when defense was no longer enough and only total retribution would suffice."
He lowered the sword slightly, his expression darkening as the light cast by the blade flickered. "The Purifying Blade remains. But the Hopeless Armament... that, my council, is the piece of our soul we lost on the battlefield. Without it by our siden, we are no longer the children the Goddess once walked beside."
Ragnar’s gaze swept across the chamber, noting the bowed heads of his advisors. The silence was brittle, charged with the collective shame of a kingdom that had allowed its holiest treasure to be pillaged.
"The Hopeless Armament was not merely lost on the field," Ragnar said, his voice dropping to a gravelly, dangerous whisper. "It was taken. It sits today in the hands of the Björn, worn as a trophy and a mockery, a blasphemous insult to us and to the Goddess herself."
With a flick of his hand, a spectral projection shimmered into existence above the council table. It was the familiar, loathsome image of the Björn’s primary idol, the Ascended God. The statue was a grotesque masterpiece of a deity crowned with demonic horns, his face twisted into an expression of eternal, manic glee. But it was the hands of the statue that drew every eye. There, clamped firmly onto the stone wrists, were the gauntlets.
A ripple of stifled rage moved through the council.
"Enough time has passed since our last bloodletting," Ragnar continued "Time that has brought us great evolution and profound change. It is time we demand the people of Björn return what is rightfully ours."
He fell silent, the glow of his sword dimming as he sank back into his throne.
The council members remained motionless, their thoughts churning. They understood the subtext of his words better than anyone. When Ragnar spoke of "change and progress," he was being characteristically prudent, he was masking the memory of the devastating civil war that had torn Silvrynheim apart in the wake of the Great War.
It had been a period of brutal internal restructuring, a time when the kingdom had been forged anew in fire and blood. They were no longer the fractured people who had nearly lost to the Björn, they were now a singular, hardened nation unified under one banner.
Ragnar watched them, his expression unreadable. He knew the history of every man sitting at that table. Many of them had seen the royal family weakened by the aftermath of the war with Björn and had deemed it the perfect moment to seize the throne for themselves. But Ragnar had defied their expectations, he had emerged triumphant, crushing the internal rebellion and tightening his grip on the kingdom more firmly than ever before.
Many of those who now sat in the council seats were the very same people who had once plotted his downfall. Now, they bowed their heads, having accepted that preserving their status and position was the best they could hope for. But as they listened to Ragnar, a cold dread settled over them. They realized that he was cut from the same cloth as his parents, he was ready to drag the kingdom into another war.
The room grew deathly quiet, the air thick with the weight of unsaid things. The speaker was Lord Valerius, son of an aristocrat who had once orchestrated a bloody coup to replace the crown, a man who had barely managed to keep his head when Ragnar crushed the uprising. Like many in this hall, Valerius had traded his father’s ambition for survival, settling for the safety of his title while secretly harboring resentment for the "Royal" bloodline that had somehow outmaneuvered them all.
Valerius looked up, his pale eyes flickering with a mix of anger and strategic defiance. He was the only one brave enough to voice the collective anxiety of the room.
"Why now?" Valerius echoed, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings. "We have spent years stitching our own borders shut, healing the scars of our civil war, and establishing a fragile prosperity. The kingdom of Björn is not the ragged collection of tribes we fought in our fathers time. They have evolved, hardened under their new Queen, and their borders are fortified in a way we do not yet fully understand."
He gestured vaguely toward the glowing projection of the demon-horned idol. "You speak of a lost relic, a treasure that has been absent for a generation. And yet, look at us. The Goddess still grants us her light, our cities stand, and our people prosper under your rule. Why risk the current peace, why invite the shadow of total war over a piece of cold steel and iron that has changed nothing in our daily lives?"
A few councilors shifted uncomfortably, their eyes darting between the King and the defiant Lord.
Ragnar absorbed the words, though his focus remained fixed elsewhere. His attention was not on Valerius, but on the three Paragons seated before him. They sat with arms folded and eyes closed, projecting an air of indifference, as if the matters being debated held no consequence for them.
Of those three, two were his allies, while the third belonged to the faction that had once sought to snatch the throne. That treachery however belonged to the past, now they were all bound together for the sake of a greater kingdom.
As for Valerius, his words were undeniably true. A war was unnecessary, a foolish squandering of lives. But that meant nothing to Ragnar. He carried a blood debt that must be paid back. He had allowed the revenge simmer so long because he was weak, and his enemy was a god.
But that, too, had changed. Ragnar was a Paragon now, a vessel for divine-like power of his own. He was no longer an easy prey, he was finally capable of bringing the fight to Björn.
Ragnar understood that righteous indignation and personal vendettas would not be enough to sway the council. But for him to raise the matters today, he had prepared for this moment, knowing exactly what spark was needed to set a fire beneath them.
But first, he leaned forward, his voice low and threatening. "I have tolerated your mockery of the divine tools bestowed upon us by the gods, but bear this in mind it will not happen again. Next time, your head will find a new home, severed from your shoulders."
Valerius stiffened, the color draining from his face as he realized the gravity of his mistake in calling the blessed artifacts mere "iron." He moved instantly, rising to bow first toward the statue of Mahu, then deeply to Ragnar. "My apologies, my King."