Later that night, the capital was quiet.

Ludger was asleep.

Not the shallow rest of exhaustion, but the controlled stillness he’d trained himself into, body relaxed, senses never fully shut off. Which was why his eyes opened the moment something changed.

A presence. Close. Familiar. Trying very hard not to be noticed.

Ludger rolled silently out of bed and crossed the room without a sound. As he neared the window, he caught the faintest shift in air, weight redistributing, breath held.

He pulled the curtain aside.

Kaela stood outside on the narrow ledge, hand raised, clearly about to knock.

She froze when she saw him already standing there.

“…You’re awake,” she said flatly.

Ludger opened the window. Cool night air rushed in. “I’ll tell my mother,” he said calmly, “that you knocked on my window in the middle of the night.”

Her eyes widened in pure horror.

“Please no,” she blurted. “Your mother scares the shit out of me.”

He considered that for a second, then stepped back to let her talk.

She exhaled, rubbing her face. “I didn’t come to get murdered by Elaine,” she muttered. “I came because of the drunkard.”

That wiped the faint amusement from Ludger’s face.

“Go on,” he said.

Kaela leaned closer, voice low now. “He’s alive. Very alive. And the things I heard from him?” She shook her head once. “They’re… very interesting.”

Ludger’s gaze hardened as he listened, night silence pressing in around them.

So it wasn’t over after all.

Kaela didn’t waste time.

“He wants to talk,” she said quietly. “Tonight. It’s the best chance we’ll get before someone decides to keep an eye on both of you. After today, people are already nervous.”

Ludger nodded once.

“That figures.”

He didn’t hesitate. He swung one leg over the window frame and dropped lightly onto the stone ledge outside, landing without a sound. The night air was cool, carrying the distant hum of the capital settling into uneasy sleep.

This was a good opportunity.

He glanced once at Kaela, then toward the rooftops beyond.

“I figured he’d reach out,” Ludger said as they started moving. “If he wanted me dead, he had cleaner ways.”

Kaela snorted softly. “The claws?”

“Yep.”

Ludger ran a hand along the stone as they moved, thoughts turning inward. He wouldn’t say he understood the man, not really. Trading blows didn’t grant insight into motives. But it did tell you something important.

The drunkard could have made that fight far uglier.

Those claws weren’t decoration. Used properly, they would’ve turned the brawl into something far bloodier. Instead, he’d thrown them away. Chosen fists. Chosen risk.

Fairness, then.

After Ludger’s earlier fights, after burning through mana, after being worn down by attrition, the man had adjusted. Evened the field. Not out of mercy, but out of principle.

That kind of fighter didn’t talk unless he meant it.

Ludger’s eyes sharpened as they crossed the rooftops, shadows swallowing them whole.

Whatever the drunkard wanted to say, it was important enough to risk the capital’s attention.

And Ludger intended to hear every word.

Kaela led Ludger across two rooftops and slipping into the streets proper. They moved without hurry, but without wasted time either, weaving through sleeping dark districts until the noise of the capital thinned into distant echoes.

She stopped behind a tavern.

Not the front, where lanterns still burned and drunk patrons laughed, but the alley out back, where spilled ale soured the air and shadows pooled thick between leaning walls.

He was already there.

The drunkard sat on an overturned crate beneath a broken rain gutter, torso wrapped in layers of rough bandages that did a poor job of hiding just how much damage he’d taken. One arm was immobilized against his chest, the other resting loosely on his knee. His breathing was steady, but shallow.

When he saw Ludger, he lifted his hand in a casual wave.

“Hey, kid—”

Pain spiked.

He flinched hard, teeth grinding as the motion pulled at broken bones. His arm dropped back to his side, and he hissed through clenched teeth before forcing a crooked grin back onto his face.

“…Right. Still hurts.”

Ludger didn’t respond immediately.

His eyes flicked once to each end of the alley, senses expanding outward.

There.

A presence above, light and contained, Gaius, perched somewhere high, weight balanced like a coiled spring. Another farther back, steady and cold as a held breath, Maurien, watching angles, already mapping exits. And off to the side, barely there unless you knew what to feel for, Luna, patient, and ready.

Of course they knew.

Kaela hadn’t been sneaking. She’d been signaling.

Good, Ludger thought. No surprises.

He stepped fully into the alley, posture relaxed but alert, eyes returning to the bandaged man.

“You look worse than I do,” Ludger said calmly.

The drunkard snorted, then winced again. “Yeah, well. You throw people across buildings, this happens. It is unfair that you can heal yourself this fast.”

He glanced briefly at Kaela, then back at Ludger. “Appreciate you coming.”

Ludger crossed his arms. “You wanted to talk.”

The man nodded slowly, the joking edge dulled but not gone.

“Yeah,” he said. “Before someone decides this conversation shouldn’t happen.”

The alley stayed quiet. But it wasn’t empty. And all of them knew it.

The drunkard let out a breath and straightened as much as his injuries allowed.

“Guess I should start proper,” he said. “Name’s Hroth.”

He paused, then added with a crooked smile, “Or at least, that’s the one I’m using here.”

Before anyone could respond, he snapped his fingers. The sound was soft. Ordinary. The effect wasn’t.

A thin ripple spread outward from him, barely disturbing the air. No flash. No flare. Just a subtle settling, like the world had decided to lean in and listen only to what was said inside a small, invisible boundary. The alley seemed to grow quieter, tavern noise dulling as if wrapped in cloth.

Ludger felt it immediately.

The ward was small. Precise. Almost polite in its mana usage, so little that anyone more than a few steps away wouldn’t notice a thing. Even those close would need sharp senses to feel it at all.

But the quality of it? Undeniable.

The structure was clean, layered, and stable in a way only experienced spellcraft ever was. No wasted mana. No sloppy edges. This wasn’t something thrown together in a hurry.

Hroth lowered his hand. “Sound-muffling ward,” he said. “Short range. Short duration. Don’t worry, if someone strong enough pushes on it, we’ll know.”

That did nothing to ease Ludger’s expression.

“You said you were a spy,” Ludger said flatly.

Hroth nodded. “Infiltrated,” he corrected. “From Argarthia.”

That made Ludger frown.

The name rang a bell, but faintly. Distant. Half-learned from maps and passing mentions rather than lived experience.

Before he could respond, footsteps sounded softly from the shadows.

Maurien stepped into the edge of the ward’s boundary, cloak barely stirring, eyes fixed on Hroth with a scholar’s sharp interest rather than hostility.

“Argarthia,” Maurien said, confirming it aloud. “A magical country beyond the Velis League. Far side. Heavily warded borders. They call themselves magicists, but they can also use magic.”

He glanced briefly at Ludger. “They’re known for high-discipline spellcraft and… unconventional doctrines.”

Hroth snorted quietly. “That’s one way to put it.”

Ludger’s gaze returned to the bandaged man, frown deepening, not in anger, but calculation.

So it was true.

This wasn’t just capital nonsense.

Not just imperial games.

If Argarthia had eyes on him… if they’d sent someone like this…

Then the ripples from the arena had already crossed an entire league of nations.

Hroth shifted on the crate, wincing as bandages pulled tight, then settled again with a slow breath.

“I infiltrated the Empire years ago,” he said. No bravado now. Just a fact. “Long before your name meant anything outside the frontier. Rumors were already circulating back home, quiet ones. Movements that didn’t match official records. Resources disappearing. Influence changing hands without wars to explain it.”

He tapped two fingers lightly against his knee. “Argarthia doesn’t have the luxury of ignoring that kind of thing.”

Maurien listened without interrupting. Ludger did the same.

“We’re busy,” Hroth went on. “Always have been. Borders under constant pressure. Enemies that don’t announce themselves before they test our wards. So we value intelligence. A lot. You don’t survive where I come from by reacting late.”

Ludger nodded once.

That, at least, made sense.

He’d been building something similar with Torvares, dispatches, informants, quiet trade connections, people paid to listen rather than fight. Still young. Still local. Nothing that reached across leagues or nations yet.

Argarthia was playing the same game.

Just on a bigger board.

“I kept my head down,” Hroth continued. “Used what I’m good at. Fighting. Brawling. Winning ugly matches in places people didn’t ask too many questions. Built a reputation that made sense for a man without a past.”

A humorless smile tugged at his mouth. “Eventually got picked up by a guild that cooperates with Ashbound Compact. Not leadership. Not inner circle. Just… adjacent.”

That made Ludger’s eyes narrow.

“Those guilds,” Ludger said calmly. “Are they tied to the Rodericks? Or Verk?”

Hroth shook his head immediately. “No. Not that deep.”

He leaned back slightly, careful of his injuries. “They’re opportunists. That’s all. Smelled chaos in the capital and thought they could use it. Build fame. Expand influence. Position themselves higher before the dust settles.”

“So they’re parasites,” Ludger said.

“More like scavengers,” Hroth replied. “Dangerous only if you ignore them. They don’t know who’s really pulling strings. They just know there’s movement, and they want to profit before someone bigger slams the door shut.”

That answer didn’t relax Ludger, but it did clarify things.

These weren’t masterminds. They were accelerants.

People who made bad situations worse because it benefited them.

Ludger exhaled slowly.

“Then they chose the wrong chaos,” he said.

Hroth met his gaze, eyes sharp despite the bruises.

“Yeah,” he agreed quietly. “That’s why I’m here instead of pretending today was just another arena match.”

Hroth shifted again, then stilled, choosing his words with care.

“I heard about Lionsguard months ago,” he said. “Not the loud stuff. Not the contracts or the arena talk. The quiet things.” He glanced briefly toward the alley mouth, then back. “Routes stabilizing where they shouldn’t. Incidents cooling down instead of escalating. Certain problems… disappearing.”

Maurien’s eyes sharpened slightly.

“That doesn’t happen by accident,” Hroth continued. “Not in this climate. So I started connecting dots. A guild with frontier roots. Backed by Torvares. Acting like they’re preparing for something larger than local profit.”

He let out a breath. “Same thing we do.”

Ludger didn’t interrupt.

“I realized the Lionsguard wasn’t just reacting to chaos,” Hroth said. “You were mapping it. Finding who benefits when things go wrong. Who whispers instead of shouts. Who pushes nations toward each other just enough to watch them bleed.”

His gaze settled fully on Ludger now. “That put you on my list. Not as a target. As a… variable.”

He spread his good hand slightly. “I didn’t come looking for you. Too risky. Too obvious. You don’t approach someone like you unless you’re sure they’ll listen.”

“So you waited,” Ludger said.

Hroth nodded. “For leverage. For a moment where talking made sense.”

“The contest,” Ludger said.

“The contest,” Hroth confirmed. “Public. Political. Messy enough that a ‘drunkard’ fighting above his weight wouldn’t raise the right suspicions.” A faint grin tugged at his mouth. “And if I got beaten half to death in the process… well. That proved a few things too.”

Silence stretched for a moment.

Then Ludger crossed his arms.

The gesture was calm, familiar, but the air around him tightened.

“Why,” Ludger asked evenly, “should I believe any of that?”

No accusation. No anger.

Just a question that carried weight.

Hroth didn’t answer immediately. He met Ludger’s gaze without flinching, bruised face serious now, humor stripped away.

“That,” he said finally, “is the right question.”

The ward hummed softly around them, the capital ignorant just a few steps away, as the conversation reached the point where words alone wouldn’t be enough anymore.

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