Maurien folded his arms and leaned against the wall, his sharp eyes narrowing slightly on Ludger. “You’re not wrong to keep secrets,” he said, tone low but steady. “But you should know something before you decide who to trust.”

He gestured toward Kaela with his chin. “You might not want to hear this, but I’ve heard a few rumors about our little wind mage here.”

Kaela froze mid-motion, halfway through brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Rumors?” she asked, wary.

Maurien nodded. “You’re a bit famous in the south, you know. A troublemaker who attacks smuggling crews on the coastal routes—especially the ones moving captured kids out of the Empire. Ships found split in half by wind pressure, crews knocked unconscious, and the cargo holds empty afterward. Some called it divine intervention.”

He glanced at her with a wry smile. “I called it bad news for smugglers.”

Kaela rolled her eyes and looked away, her tone casual, almost too casual. “Ugh. That got blown way out of proportion. I just… happened to be around when a few ships had accidents, that’s all.”

Torvares raised an eyebrow. “Accidents?”

“Yep,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder and giving an exaggerated shrug. “I didn’t exactly investigate those things. Just saw something shady, maybe broke a few sails, maybe flipped a few decks. You know how wind is, unpredictable.”

Maurien chuckled softly, shaking his head. “Unpredictable, sure. But funny thing, I happened to be in the area during a few of those ‘accidents.’ Seems like every time I tracked a bandit ring, you were one step ahead of me. Same aftermath, too: criminals scattered, victims gone, wind howling across the coast.”

Kaela gave an exaggerated sigh, still refusing to meet his gaze. “Coincidence. Total coincidence.”

Ludger had been watching her the whole time, and now his usual composure cracked just enough to show genuine surprise. “You… took down traffickers?” he asked quietly.

Kaela shot him a sharp glare. “Don’t look at me like that!”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m an unsuspected hero,” she said quickly, crossing her arms. “I just helped because it annoyed me seeing those idiots smuggling people like cargo. That’s all.”

Darnell let out a faint snort. “Sounds like more than ‘just helping.’”

Kaela ignored him, cheeks faintly colored, and muttered, “Please, the last thing I need is to get a reputation as some ‘good girl.’ People start asking favors when you do that.”

Maurien chuckled under his breath. “Trust me, kid, her record’s messy, but her intentions aren’t.”

Torvares nodded slowly, studying her with new interest. “Good to know our group has a wind mage with a moral compass, even if she keeps trying to bury it under rumors of an… questionably dressed sometimes.”

Kaela huffed, brushing her hair off her shoulder again. “Don’t make it sound like that. I prefer ‘professional inconvenience.’”

Ludger’s smirk returned, faint but genuine. “So the homewrecker’s actually a secret vigilante.”

Kaela glared daggers at him. “Say that again, and I’ll drop a gale on your head so strong your hair’ll fly back to Lionfang.”

Maurien just laughed softly. “That’s the spirit. Guess we’ve got one less person to worry about betraying us.”

Ludger nodded slightly, the earlier tension easing from his shoulders. For the first time in hours, he actually believed that.

Maurien’s gaze flicked from Kaela’s exasperated glare back to Torvares, his expression sharpening. “Jokes aside,” he said, “you’ve done more than most realize, Lord Torvares. You’ve been shielding Lionfang, and especially this kid, from a lot of prying eyes here in the capital.”

Torvares’s eyes narrowed, but there was no denial. “You’ve been listening to rumors again, old mage.”

Maurien smirked. “Always. Word spreads fast in the Empire’s underbelly. People talk about the frontier prodigy, the ‘boy geomancer’ who built a town from the ground up and controls half the Lionsguard’s operations. They say it’s only a matter of time before he’s dragged down here and enrolled in the Imperial Magic Academy, invitations were sent many times.”

That drew a faint frown from Ludger, who leaned forward slightly. “Enrolled?” he repeated.

Maurien nodded. “Aye. People talk about it like it’s already decided. The capital loves its stories. I’ve even heard about all the invitations sent your way, Academy letters, noble summons, party invitations. But despite all that noise…” He smiled faintly. “You’re still free. Still in the north. Guess we know who to thank for that.”

Torvares said nothing for a long moment. Then he gave a soft, knowing hum. “I did what was necessary.”

Ludger’s frown deepened. “Many invitations?” he asked. “I only ever heard about one.”

Torvares glanced his way, his usual calm tone carrying a trace of humor. “Ah. That one.”

He rested both hands on his cane, his eyes faintly amused. “You were nine. You’d just finished building your first defense wall around Lionfang. The letter came from the Academy’s south division, a formal invitation for you to take an evaluation in the capital. Do you remember what you did after reading it?”

Ludger’s brow furrowed as he tried to recall. “…I broke a rock.”

Torvares chuckled quietly. “You pulverized a boulder three times your size. With your bare hands. Then you messed up your arm so badly it took three days to properly fixed. Arslan told me everything.”

Kaela snorted, half-covering her grin. “Sounds like you handled invitation a healthy way.”

Torvares smiled faintly. “After that little incident, I made an executive decision. Any letter bearing the Academy seal went directly into my firepit. I assumed you’d rather not be reminded of them.”

He tapped the cane lightly on the floor, his tone dry as stone. “Besides, I felt it was my civic duty to protect the boulders of the world from your wrath.”

Kharnek burst into laughter, his booming voice echoing off the hall. “By the gods, I wish I’d seen that!”

Kaela grinned, shaking her head. “That explains so much about your personality.”

Ludger’s face was unreadable, but a muscle in his cheek twitched. “…I was testing my strength.”

Maurien laughed softly. “Sure you were.”

Torvares’s voice softened, though still carrying that amused edge. “And that’s why you’re still free, Ludger. The capital has enough ambitious prodigies clawing for recognition. You don’t belong in that cage.”

Ludger gave a faint sigh. “Guess I owe you, then.”

Torvares shook his head. “You don’t owe me anything, boy. Just promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“If another letter comes,” Torvares said, smiling, “at least let the boulder live this time.”

Kaela nearly choked trying not to laugh, while Ludger’s glare promised future revenge, preferably geological in nature.

Ludger let out a long breath and leaned back in his chair, the faint tension between his shoulders visible even through the calm mask he wore. “Enough about boulders,” he muttered. “Before this turns into a comedy act, there’s something we need to talk about.”

The change in tone was immediate. The laughter from Kharnek and Kaela faded. Even Torvares straightened, his expression sharpening.

Ludger’s eyes drifted toward Maurien, then to the others. “You wanted to know what I’ve been digging into behind the curtains,” he said evenly. “So I’ll keep it simple.”

He folded his arms. “A few months ago, when Maurien and I were in the western mountains, we stumbled on a group of smugglers operating under guild cover. On the surface, they were just bandits with decent gear. But their supply lines, runes, weapons, came from Velis League workshops. Not through legal trade. Through channels tied to the slave markets and drug circles that plague the North.”

Maurien gave a grim nod. “He’s not exaggerating. We found branding sigils, counterfeit crests, and coins minted in the League’s border cities. They were feeding contraband straight into the Empire.”

Ludger continued, voice steady. “We cleaned that up quietly. Buried what we couldn’t burn. But that wasn’t the end of it.” He glanced toward Torvares. “Later, when I went east to find Gaius, I discovered that he’d been captured by a guild member from Meira. Supposedly a ‘respectable’ man.”

Torvares frowned. “Supposedly.”

“Yeah,” Ludger said. “Except he was also running an underworld guild under another name. One that took contracts that couldn’t be made public, kidnappings, assassinations, debt slavery. They’d gotten word someone was paying to have Gaius taken alive. Not killed. Alive.”

The room fell silent for a moment.

Maurien rubbed his chin, his voice thoughtful. “Alive means information. Or magic brain washing.”

“Exactly.” Ludger nodded. “We dealt with that too. But the pattern kept repeating.”

He paused, eyes distant for a moment. “Back when Viola was still staying in Koa, before the Lionsguard became official, Luna and I took her scouting through the outer roads. We found four men hiding in the alleys, watching our house.”

Torvares’s expression darkened, his fingers tightening slightly on his cane.

“We took them down before they could attack,” Ludger said quietly. “But that’s when I started to realize this wasn’t random. Smugglers in the west, infiltrators in the east, spies watching the heirs of noble houses… it’s too coordinated to be a coincidence.”

The silence that followed was heavy. Even Kaela, normally the first to make a joke, stayed quiet. She crossed her arms and looked at him with a frown, not of disbelief, but of calculation.

“Busy schedule for a kid,” she said at last, her voice dry but subdued. “You’re supposed to be doing paperwork and yelling at recruits, not uncovering half the Empire’s criminal web.”

Ludger’s gaze flicked toward her, unreadable. “Someone has to do it.”

She tilted her head, studying him for a long moment. Her tone was lighter when she spoke again, but her expression didn’t match it. “You’re not wrong. Still… that’s a lot of darkness for someone your age to walk through.”

Ludger shrugged. “Darkness doesn’t care how old you are. It just waits until you look away.”

Maurien let out a quiet breath, leaning forward slightly. “He’s right. This isn’t about territory or greed anymore, it’s a network that moves between nations. Someone’s pulling threads that connect the Empire, the League, and the borders.”

Torvares nodded grimly. “And they’re doing it quietly enough that most of the court doesn’t even suspect a thing.”

Ludger glanced toward the window, where faint daylight filtered through the curtains. “Then it’s about time someone made noise.”

The words hung in the air like a promise, or a warning.

Maurien leaned back in his chair, the faint gleam of determination replacing his usual weariness. The lamplight caught the edge of his cloak as he spoke, voice low but steady.

“Then tomorrow,” he said, “I’ll go with you all. We’ll meet these negotiators face-to-face and demand some answers.”

Torvares raised an eyebrow. “You realize that’s going to cause a ruckus.”

Maurien gave a humorless smile. “Good. Ruckus is overdue. We’ve been quiet for too long.”

He folded his arms, gaze fixed on the table as if weighing each word. “Caution’s a virtue, yes—but it’s also a leash. Every time we ‘wait and see,’ the Empire loses a little more ground. Not just in politics or trade. In willpower. In faith.”

Kaela tilted her head, studying him. “You sound like someone who’s already decided war’s coming.”

Maurien shook his head slowly. “Not war. Collapse.” His voice dropped lower, rough as gravel. “While the nobles bicker and the Senate writes speeches, villages burn, ports rot, and the people bleed. Every day we sit and plan ‘the right moment,’ another town loses a healer, another farmer’s child starves. I’m not worried about the Empire’s honor anymore. I’m worried about the ones who’ll die when its walls finally crack.”

Ludger watched him in silence, noting how the old mage’s eyes, usually distant and unreadable—had gone sharp with something close to fury.

Maurien exhaled slowly, forcing the tension from his shoulders. “So yes. Tomorrow, we will stop talking in circles. We go into that room, and we press them. Hard. No more waiting for someone else to fix the rot.”

Torvares met his gaze for a long, heavy moment, then nodded. “Agreed. The Empire may have lost its edge, but its defenders haven’t.”

Maurien gave a faint, tired smirk. “Let’s hope the negotiators understand that before I lose my temper.”

The room fell quiet after that, the rain outside soft against the windowpanes a reminder of what still connected them all: a crumbling nation, and the weight of those still trying to hold it up.

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