"Ludwig?" Redd asked as he noticed that Ludwig looked like he was staring at the empty air for a second.
Redd’s voice ca out cautious rather than loud, the kind of sound a man makes when he’s not sure if he’s interrupting sothing holy or sothing broken. The air still tasted faintly of scorched magic and river-damp rot, and the ground beneath their boots held that uneasy stillness that follows violence, as if it was waiting to see if the world was done shaking.
Ludwig had been moving with purpose a mont ago, and then, nothing. His eyes fixed on nothing at all, chin angled as though listening to a whisper no one else could hear. It wasn’t a dramatic trance, just that subtle, wrong pause that made the hairs on Redd’s arms lift.
"Hem, yeah," Ludwig then returned his gaze to Redd.
The sound was small, almost dismissive, like clearing one’s throat in a quiet room, but it carried weight because Ludwig did not often drift like that unless sothing had a hold on him. He looked at Redd properly now, as if rembering he had company and deciding, after the fact, to acknowledge it.
"Thought we lost you there for a second," Redd said.
Redd tried to keep it light, tried to make it sound like a joke tossed between comrades after a close scrape, but his shoulders remained tight. His eyes flicked over Ludwig’s face, searching for the signs he’d learned to recognize.
"Had a eting with Necros right now, all is good..." Ludwig said.
The words landed too casually for what they ant, and that was exactly what made them unsettling. Ludwig spoke as though he’d rely stepped aside to talk to a rchant, not brushed against the attention of a god. His tone was calm, almost bored, yet there was a thin edge under it, an aftertaste of sothing too vast to fit into ordinary speech. The river nearby seed to hush in response, its golden current shimring as if the souls within it were listening too.
Tull looked at Ludwig funny, "What do you an a eting with Necros? You never left."
Tull’s expression tightened into that hard, suspicious line he always wore when the subject touched the Dark Arts. His grip shifted on his weapon by habit, knuckles whitening just slightly. He stared at Ludwig like he was trying to catch him in a lie through sheer force of will. There was no humor in him now, only that soldier’s blunt need for things to make sense.
"etings with gods don’t require you to move or act, speak or converse, if they wanted to talk to you, they just do it. Regardless of ti or space. Anyway, guess I’m doing good right now, he seed quite... happy."
Ludwig answered without heat, as though he’d explained this before, as though it was the simplest fact in the world. He spoke with the patience of soone describing weather to a man who insisted on arguing with the sky.
There was a pause before the last word, a faint hitch in the rhythm when he said "quite... happy," and in that small hesitation the others could hear what Ludwig didn’t bother to spell out: that a god’s happiness was not a comforting thing. Not here. Not now. The notion of Necros being pleased sat wrong in the mouth, like saying a grave was warm.
"A god of death that’s happy, that’s a sentence," Alex smiled.
Alex’s smile was tired, worn at the edges, but he offered it anyway like a man trying to keep the group from sliding into a fear they couldn’t afford. The prince’s face still held the pale strain of expenditure, the kind of exhaustion that went beyond muscle, down into bone and breath.
"We need to get you guys out of here though," Ludwig said.
His tone shifted with that sentence, the casualness thinning out until only intent remained. He glanced ahead along the river’s path, not at the water itself but at what waited beyond it, the unseen pressure that made the air feel heavier the farther they looked.
"Why, didn’t we have a mission to do?" Redd’s ears twitched. He asked the question like he already knew the answer, but wanted Ludwig to say it anyway, wanted it confird out loud so it could be planned around.
"Yeah, but I don’t know how long it will last, not to ntion... the Lustful Death now knows that the Envious Death is dead." Ludwig said.
Ludwig didn’t look at them when he said it. He looked outward, far in the distance at the path they ca from. As if seeing the threat that was already moving.
"If what you said is true, that the Lustful Death is the queen of the Kingdom of the sands... then that makes less sense. Wasn’t it good for these... Usurpers to be alone in a territory? We did her a favor... why would she co after us?" Tull asked.
Tull’s skepticism returned with force, not because he wanted to argue, but because his mind demanded logic as a shield against dread. He spoke carefully around the word "Usurpers," as if saying it too plainly might summon another.
His eyes flicked to the prince, then back to Ludwig, calculating. If they had removed a rival from her board, why would she not welco it? The question was sensible. That was what made Ludwig’s answer matter.
"Because we did her that favor, and only we know who she is. And that Manitou imprisoned in her caverns. If she eliminates us, well, no one would be privy of her little secret..."
Ludwig’s voice stayed even, but the aning of it was cold. He laid it out like a corpse on a table: simple, practical, unavoidable. Witness. Loose ends. All should be handled and she would without breaking a sweat or moving a finger if need be.
"He’s right," Redd said. "Been having the goosebumps since earlier, feels like sothing bad coming our way..."
Redd rubbed his forearm, as if he could smooth the sensation down, but it only worsened. The hairs along his skin rose and stayed raised. He tried to laugh it off, but it ca out wrong, strained. His instincts were loud, the animal part of him pressing its face against the bars and snarling. Sothing was coming. Not a vague fear, not imagination, but that primal certainty that the air itself was beginning to taste like trouble.
"You guys have to leave."
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