For a brief mont, the room tightened. Not because the words were insulting. Not directly. Because they revealed sothing Torvares couldn’t pretend not to see: Ludger wasn’t offering the wine as a gift.
He was offering it as proof. As leverage. As a reminder that Lionsguard could create value without Torvares’ permission… and could do so while still refusing to play nice.
Torvares’ expression shifted into sothing complicated. A flicker of pride, maybe. A flicker of irritation. A flicker of regret.
And under it all, the sa quiet awareness that had followed him for months: the boy across the desk didn’t just build walls, he built independence.
Ludger watched the reaction for half a second, then sighed. It wasn’t as long as the one he’d tried to suppress last night. But it carried the sa exhaustion.
“I ca here to stop this annoying situation,” Ludger said, voice low. “Because it ended up involving my mother.”
His eyes lifted then, direct.
“And Viola.”
Torvares’ fingers tightened around his cup. The older man’s gaze dropped briefly, not in sha, Torvares didn’t do sha. In calculation. In acceptance that the board had changed.
“I apologize,” Torvares said quietly. “For that.”
He took a small sip, then set his cup down with controlled care.
“I didn’t think Luna would talk so easily.”
Ludger’s eyes narrowed a fraction.
Torvares hesitated, actually hesitated, then his tone shifted, subtle but real.
“Recently,” he said, “she has been… acting off.”
The words were cautious. Not gossip. Not complaint. Concern, wrapped in restraint. Torvares rubbed a thumb along the rim of the stone cup, as if grounding himself.
“I don’t know if it’s guilt,” he admitted. “Or loyalty pulling her in two directions. Or sothing else entirely.”
His gaze rose again, steady on Ludger.
“But it wasn’t supposed to spread. Not like that.”
Ludger didn’t answer imdiately. He stared at the wine in his cup, watching how it clung to the stone, and felt the tension in his chest shift. Not dissolve. Just… rearrange. Because Torvares apologizing wasn’t the end.
It was just the first real sentence in a conversation that should’ve happened a year ago. Ludger let the cup sit between his hands for a mont, feeling the faint warmth of the stone and the heavier warmth of the wine inside it.
He didn’t drink. He stared at it like it was a simpler problem than the one sitting across the desk. Then he spoke, voice flat, controlled in the way it always was when he didn’t want emotion to leak out and beco exploitable.
“I don’t want to forgive you,” Ludger said.
Torvares didn’t react. No insulted pride. No defensive posture. Just attention. Ludger continued, eyes lifting from the cup to Torvares’ face.
“Not for acting behind my back like that.” His jaw tightened slightly. “Especially not now.”
He leaned forward a fraction, just enough to make the words feel heavier.
“Now when the Regent wants reasons to screw with the Lionsguard.”
That wasn’t paranoia. It was the obvious shape of politics. The border was growing teeth, and the capital didn’t like anything it didn’t control. Ludger’s fingers tightened around the cup.
“You handed a secret that can be used as a chain,” he said. “And you did it without asking. Without warning. Without even letting decide what risks I was willing to carry.”
He paused, breath slow, then added the part that mattered more than the insult.
“But…” Ludger’s gaze flicked away for a heartbeat, then returned, steadier. “I also don’t want to make the people closest to worry about personal matters like this.”
The words ca out blunt, but there was sothing raw underneath them. The mory of Elaine’s serious face. Of the twins on the floor. Of a ho that wasn’t supposed to be poisoned by political rot. Torvares exhaled once, quiet.
“That is fair,” he said.
No argunt. No justification. Just agreent. Ludger’s shoulders eased by a hair, not because it solved anything, but because at least Torvares was listening like a man who understood consequences. Ludger set the cup down, stone clicking softly against wood.
“Viola and you,” he said, “are the only nobles I wanted to trust.”
The sentence hung in the air like a blade offered hilt-first. Torvares’ gaze sharpened, the smallest tension appearing in his eyes at the weight of it. Ludger didn’t soften the next part.
“But that doesn’t work,” he said, “if you try to act behind my back again.”
Silence. Torvares didn’t rush to reassure him with pretty words. He didn’t promise loyalty like it was a cheap oath. He simply nodded. Once. Slow. Quiet. Solid.
A silent acknowledgent that he understood the boundary Ludger had just carved into the stone between them. Ludger let the silence sit for a mont after Torvares’ nod. Not because he enjoyed it this ti. Because he needed to decide whether he was about to do sothing smart… or sothing that would bite him later.
He looked at the bottle. The cups. The desk. The old man across it. Then he exhaled, slow, and spoke with the sa blunt honesty he used on walls and war plans.
“I don’t want to make my mother worry,” Ludger said.
Torvares’ eyes softened by a fraction, almost imperceptible.
“And I don’t want to make Viola worry either,” Ludger added. His mouth tightened. “Not over sothing like this.”
He held Torvares’ gaze as he said the next words, because he refused to pretend they were easy.
“So… I’m planning to treat you like family.”
Torvares didn’t respond imdiately. For the first ti since Ludger had walked in, the old bull looked genuinely caught. Not confused. Not threatened. Just… still. Like the offer had landed in a place that politics couldn’t reach. Ludger didn’t fill the gap. He didn’t soften it with jokes. He simply asked, steady and direct:
“Do you want that?”
Torvares stared at him for a long mont. His fingers rested on the desk, unmoving, as if he were weighing the word family the way he weighed treaties and troop movents.
Then his throat worked once. He spoke quietly.
“…I would appreciate that.”
Sothing in Ludger’s shoulders eased, not like relief, but like a knot loosening one strand at a ti. He nodded once. No smile. No ceremony. Then he stood up slightly in his chair and extended his hand across the desk.
A simple gesture. But in that room, with that history, it was heavier than a contract.Torvares’ gaze flicked to the offered hand. Then back to Ludger’s face.
Ludger said, voice low but firm, “Then let’s work together to make this family work.”
His eyes narrowed a fraction, not threatening, just serious.
“And let’s not make the won in the family worry too much as well.”
For a heartbeat, Torvares looked like he might laugh. He didn’t. Instead, he reached out and took Ludger’s hand.
His grip was warm and steady, an older man’s strength, controlled, asured. They shook once. Not a business handshake. Not a political seal. Sothing closer to a promise that would be tested the mont the world noticed it existed. Torvares released his hand slowly.
“Agreed,” he said.
And for the first ti in almost a year, the space between them felt less like a battlefield and more like… a foundation. They drank a bit more after the handshake.
Not enough to dull their edges, Ludger wouldn’t allow that, and Torvares was too old a politician to get sloppy in his own office, but enough to let the tension unclench into sothing workable.
The wine stayed excellent. Smooth, clean, with that faint mana-bright finish that made it feel like it belonged in a story told by rich people who’d never bled.
Ludger set his cup down and stopped using the bottle as a bridge. He’d co here for a reason. Business. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes steady on Torvares.
“If sothing happens to the Lionsguard now,” Ludger said, “sothing that would put most people of the Empire against us…”
His voice hardened slightly.
“…it would be the discovery of Eclaire’s existence.”
Torvares didn’t argue. His expression tightened. He already knew what kind of powder keg that was. An illegitimate imperial child hidden on the frontier, depending on who found out first, it could beco blackmail, or propaganda, or a justification to march soldiers right into Lionfang “for the protection of the realm.”
Ludger continued, precise.
“So we have to avoid that.”
Torvares’s fingers tapped once against the desk, quiet. Waiting. Ludger’s gaze didn’t waver.
“There are many ways,” he said. “Information control. Misleading trails. Keeping her inside. Rotating disguises. Using false nas. Moving her between safe houses.”
He paused, then added with blunt honesty:
“None of them are foolproof.”
Torvares’s mouth flattened. Ludger inhaled once, then said the real point.
“Unless we can change her appearance completely.”
Torvares’s eyes narrowed. Ludger’s voice stayed flat, almost clinical.
“Not a hood. Not dyed hair. Not a different dress. I an completely. To the point most people wouldn’t be able to tell she’s in disguise even if they’re staring right at her.”
Torvares frowned, the first genuine crack of uncertainty showing.
“That’s…” he started, then stopped, recalculating. “Difficult.”
“It’s necessary,” Ludger said.
Torvares’s gaze sharpened again, suspicion mixing with interest.
“What do you have in mind exactly?” he asked.
Ludger didn’t answer imdiately. Because the idea forming in his head wasn’t polite. It wasn’t comfortable. But it was practical. And in the Empire, practical was the closest thing to rcy people ever got.
Ludger didn’t dress the idea up. He’d learned the hard way that padding the truth just gave people room to misunderstand you.
“Do you know anyone skilled at disguise?” he asked. “Preferably illusion magic.”
The words landed like a stone in still water.
Lord Torvares’ expression tightened, not in surprise—more like a man hearing the na of a disease he’d hoped was extinct.
He frowned. And then… he didn’t answer.
A long pause stretched across the desk, thick enough that even the clock’s ticking felt too loud. Torvares’ eyes drifted to the window for a heartbeat, as if checking whether the walls could hear, then returned to Ludger with sothing colder in them.
When he finally spoke, his voice was lower than before.
“Illusion magic is dangerous,” Torvares said.
Ludger didn’t interrupt. He didn’t push. He just watched, letting Torvares lay out the board. Torvares exhaled slowly, like he was choosing to share sothing he’d rather keep buried.
“The Empire doesn’t ‘ask’ illusionists for anything,” he continued. “Not formally. Not openly.”
He leaned back slightly, fingers steepled, gaze fixed.
“And there’s a reason.”
Ludger’s eyes narrowed. “Because they’re useful?”
Torvares’ mouth twitched, humorless.
“Because they’re uncontrollable,” he said. “And because the damage they can cause doesn’t look like damage until it’s too late.”
He gestured with two fingers, small and precise.
“With a fire mage, you see the fire. You sll smoke. You count the bodies. You know where to point the soldiers.”
“With an illusionist…” Torvares’ eyes sharpened. “You don’t know if the person in front of you is real. You don’t know if the order you received was authentic. You don’t know if the witness you interrogated actually saw what they claim they saw.”
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