Hairan had long grown bored of the company and even more bored of listening to the man seated across from him drone on. His disinterest was plain as day on his face, etched into every sharp line of his features, and he did not bother to mask it. Lord Rycoff, oblivious or simply too arrogant to care, continued speaking with the same self-important cadence.
Rycoff had always been a staunch supporter of the queen and, by extension, of Hairan. But after the king's vague and unexpected declaration, some alliances were bound to shift. Nobles, after all, excelled at only one thing: attaching themselves to power. And though the queen still held the reins for now, it would not remain that way if the king ultimately chose Ragnar as his successor.
If Ragnar became king, those same nobles who once dismissed him for being a bastard would switch sides without hesitation, eager, desperate even, to preserve their tenuous hold on power.
