Ragnarök, Eternal Tragedy.
Chapter 125: Weight of Worth

Chapter 125: Weight of Worth

The dining hall was not merely luxurious—it was performative in its wealth, every corner carved with polished mahogany and silken drapery, each chandelier hanging like starlight suspended by coin. The walls glowed with candlelight, and the floor had been buffed so thoroughly it reflected the blood smeared across the boys’ boots like a warning to itself.

The Dragunov family sat in near silence, a long table stretching down the center of the room, adorned with silverware that hadn’t been touched and plates that held meals none of them had dared to start. Twelve seats—twelve presences. The weight of the house was collective.

At the head, Lady Anastasia Dragunov—posture regal, skin pale as glass, eyes cut sharper than any blade owned by her house. To her left sat Mikhail, the eldest son, broad-shouldered and dressed in black velvet with hands folded in careful calculation. Beside him, Ivana and Oksana, twin daughters with braids woven so tight they looked sculpted. Then came the younger ones—Petyr, whose hands couldn’t stop drumming, and Talia, barely thirteen, who stared at Amari like she was reading the end of a story she hadn’t started.

Further down, the second-born daughter, Varsha, crossed one leg over the other with disinterest. Nikolai leaned back in his chair, eyes closed as if practicing detachment. Anton spoke under his breath to Gregor, youngest of the sons, while the final seat belonged to Valeriya, whose silence held more weight than presence.

They watched.

They didn’t speak.

Not yet.

The boys stepped through the archway in battered formation, Amari limp between Kenneth and Johnny, their wounds poorly concealed beneath torn clothes and crusted bandages. Their faces were drawn, legs hesitant beneath them, and every step left a faint line of blood trailing across floorboards that weren’t meant to be stained.

Lady Dragunov rose.

Slowly.

Her hands touched the table with the grace of someone who could silence war with a gesture. She stared directly at Amari, then at each of the others in turn. When her gaze met theirs, they bowed—not out of reverence, but necessity. Eyes down. Breath held. The air shifted.

"You shouldn’t bleed in front of my children," she said softly. "It makes them ask questions I don’t want answered."

Then she turned.

"Come."

They followed her without a word.

The room she chose was smaller—a study tucked behind a velvet curtain, walls lined with foreign maps and swords that hadn’t been used in decades. The windows were drawn, the air colder.

She turned toward Sergei first.

"Business," she said, "doesn’t belong beside cutlery and candied pears."

Sergei bowed his head slightly. "Apologies, milady. It felt urgent."

"Then take urgency to the war room," she replied. "Not my dinner table."

She didn’t raise her voice.

She didn’t need to.

Sergei nodded once, lips pressed together in calm guilt.

Then her gaze returned to the boys.

They stood. Silent. Broken.

She approached slowly, each step measured like it had been practiced.

"The mission," she said.

Maverick stepped forward, clearing his throat.

"Milady—"

"No," she said, interrupting. "Don’t offer excuses. You failed. My clients don’t pay for failure. They paid for a princess."

Her eyes narrowed.

"I should have each one of you strung up until the floor remembers your shape. Tortured. Dismembered. Discarded."

The room didn’t breathe.

Sergei stepped forward.

"They failed, yes," he said. "But if punishment is to be dealt, it should fall to me. I judged their readiness. I vouched for it."

Lady Dragunov blinked once, slowly.

"You want to trade their blood for your own?"

"I offer mine," Sergei replied, voice steady. "Not out of mercy. Out of accountability."

Her jaw shifted slightly, thoughtful.

Then she turned to the boys again.

"You owe me," she said. "Not in pain. Not in promises. You owe me a princess. One wrapped in silk and silence and whatever name the client demanded. That’s what I lost. That’s what you cost."

No one replied.

She gestured to the door.

"Clean yourselves. Tomorrow, you begin again."

Her silhouette faded against the candlelight as she walked away—no echo, no threat.

...

The room had dulled into silence, not from peace or exhaustion but from the sobering weight of Sergei’s words—his declaration that the next move was theirs to design, unassisted, unforgiven, and entirely unsupervised. The medic scent still lingered in their clothes, and Dragunov expectation followed like a shadow stitched to blood.

They returned to the quarters without comment, each one drifting into the space as if the walls held no comfort. It wasn’t the bruises that stung—it was uncertainty, the quiet grief of having no map, no mission, and no certainty that redemption could be earned at all.

Maverick stood by the window, the glass too clean to reflect the mess they had become. Kenneth sat stiffly, adjusting the bandages beneath his sleeve as if the tightness might somehow sharpen his thoughts. Milo leaned over the corner of a couch, head resting against his arm, watching the flickering light cast patterns across the ceiling. Johnny exhaled once, low and shaky, before collapsing into a battered chair without effort. Shylo remained near the wall, quiet as ever, his posture unreadable, but his attention fixed.

And Amari paced.

He hadn’t sat. Hadn’t slowed. Hadn’t spoken.

Not yet.

"We go to Algoria," Maverick said suddenly, his voice clear, unaffected by hesitation.

Heads turned, but no immediate challenge came.

"We take her," he continued, "Conrad’s sister. The younger one. She’s the only princess still traceable, and she’s not protected like the rest. That’s our answer."

Amari stopped mid-step.

"No," he said—flat, direct, and final.

Johnny nodded in silent agreement, his expression grim but resolute. "Algoria’s defenses aren’t decorative. They respond to threats before they breathe."

"They’re powerful," Amari added, voice low but layered in urgency. "More than you understand. And more than we can afford to underestimate."

Maverick took a step forward.

"But you’ve been inside," he said, eyes narrowing, tone sharpened by frustration. "You know the layout, the inner sectors, the patrol windows. That gives us something."

Amari turned slowly, jaw tight.

"You think surviving that place once means I know how to dismantle a kingdom?"

He didn’t shout.

But the sarcasm wasn’t gentle—it hit like flint on steel.

"You want to kidnap a girl shielded by blood-fused guards and sacred thresholds, just because I happened to escape through a drainpipe?"

"I’m saying you understand it," Maverick replied. "More than anyone here."

Amari didn’t respond. The weight in his eyes spoke louder than words.

Then Shylo broke through the tension with quiet precision.

"Then we turn to Oruba."

The silence that followed was colder than any argument before it.

Amari didn’t flinch. He just stepped in closer.

"No one goes near Oruba," he said, and while his tone didn’t rise, something beneath it shifted—an unmistakable warning woven into a voice trained to stay measured.

Milo, who had said little, lifted his gaze slowly.

"And why not?" he asked, not unkindly, but with the clarity of someone beginning to sense the shape of a truth. "Why can’t we touch Algoria? Why not Oruba? What are we avoiding?"

Amari didn’t blink.

"They’re not options," he said. "They’re graveyards you haven’t read yet."

The room pressed in tighter. Tension thickening.

"We’re not going," he added, firmly. "Not to Algoria. Not to Oruba."

There was no rage in it. Just certainty. Just something beneath the words that refused to be debated.

Maverick stepped forward again, this time with more heat.

"If you’re so set on doing nothing," he said, "then why did you ask us to come?"

Amari didn’t answer.