Ragnar did not speak much after that.
Instead, he poured everything he could not say into his actions. From morning until well into the afternoon, he remained at her side, tending to her with an almost obsessive care.
He hovered, fussed, checked her hands more times than necessary, and rarely let more than a few inches of space come between them.
Circe did not protest.
She did not mind the attention, nor the way he seemed determined to stay glued to her side, as if leaving her even for a moment would invite disaster. She understood it was his guilt that drove him. This, she knew, was his way of coping. His way of quieting the storm inside him. And so she allowed it, indulging him in his need to care for her.
But her body was no longer what it once was.
