Ludger’s eyes stayed on the sky for a beat longer, then dropped to her.

“I’m not selling raw web,” he said.

Viola’s brow furrowed. “Then what—”

“I process it at Lionfang,” Ludger cut in. “Refine it. Treat it. Test it. Turn it into products there.”

Viola stared.

Ludger continued, voice flat like he was explaining an obvious truth. “We control the production. We control the distribution. Anything related to the materials of this labyrinth runs through us.”

Monopoly. Not by decree. By choke point.

Viola’s expression shifted, surprise, then slow understanding. “That’s… ambitious.”

“It’s smart,” Ludger said. “If we sell it raw, we get paid once. If we sell finished goods, we get paid forever.”

He glanced toward the stacked bundles again, already seeing them not as webbing, but as rope, cloth, armor lining, trap wire, rune-compatible thread, whatever Aronia and Raukor and the right craftsmen could turn it into.

Then he looked at Viola. “If you want to help, don’t bring me buyers.”

Viola’s lips pressed together. “Then what do you want?”

“People,” Ludger said. “Workers. Craftsmen. Traders who can move products without talking too much. Anyone who wants to be part of the process.”

He shrugged once, small. “If you find them, send them to Lionfang.”

Viola held his gaze for a moment, then let out a slow breath, half impressed, half annoyed at how quickly he’d just turned an expedition into an economic weapon.

“…Fine,” she said. “I’ll find you people.”

Ludger nodded. “Thanks.”

Then he looked back at the orange sky and the web-wrapped island, and his expression went cold again. Because money wasn’t the only thing he was building. It was leverage. And he was going to need a lot of it very soon.

Viola watched Ludger for a moment longer, letting the wind tug at her hair while the sky bled orange over the sea.

Part of her wondered if this was spite.

Not the childish kind, Ludger wasn’t built like that, but the quiet, strategic kind. The kind that came from disagreeing with her grandfather and deciding, fine, I’ll build something that doesn’t need your cooperation.

He and Lord Torvares had aligned often, but when they didn’t… it wasn’t loud. It was a silent tug-of-war where both sides pretended they were doing it “for the good of everyone.”

And now Ludger was drawing a line.

Still…

He wasn’t completely shutting them out.

He hadn’t said no Torvares’ involvement. He hadn’t said we do it alone. He’d simply chosen a choke point that belonged to Lionsguard and Lionfang, then left the door cracked for anyone who wanted to participate, on his terms, in his territory, under his logistics. A compromise.

A spot where he could say, I’m not your pawn, without declaring war on the only noble house standing between the guild and the Empire’s appetite.

Viola exhaled slowly. She wanted to argue out of habit. To push. To negotiate like she’d been trained to… But she couldn’t say much. His reasoning was solid.

If they sold raw silk, they’d get a quick payout and then watch other people turn it into real wealth. If they refined and manufactured it in Lionfang, the money didn’t just come once, it looped back, again and again, into the guild, the town, the walls, the supply lines, the training.

And influence followed money like a shadow.

A whole business built on spider silk, rope, cloth, armor lining, alchemical thread, rune-compatible material, would pull people the way safety and opportunity always did.

Not just kids who wanted to be trained. Not just illiterate farm boys looking to learn letters and numbers because Lionsguard offered lessons with their drills. Adults.

Craftsmen. Traders. Toolmakers. Alchemists. People who smelled profit and didn’t care if it came from a monster’s body as long as it was stable. They’d migrate to Lionfang. They’d build workshops. They’d set up markets. They’d make the town bigger, louder, harder to ignore.

Viola glanced toward the island’s white shroud and felt the strange twist of it, how something horrifying could become a foundation. Ludger wasn’t just planning an expedition. He was building a lever.

And whether it came from disagreement with her grandfather or not… she couldn’t deny the result would make Lionsguard, and Lionfang, too valuable for the Empire to casually step on.

Night came fast.

The orange bled out of the sky and left behind a colder world, webs turning ghost-white under moonlight, shadows deepening between draped curtains, the island’s silence thickening as if it had been waiting for darkness to feel confident again.

They ate anyway.

Fish, dried rations, whatever could be chewed quickly without wasting time. No one had to hunt. No one had to fish. The food existed.

That didn’t make it taste better.

The atmosphere was tense in that quiet, controlled way where people spoke less than they wanted to, because every extra word felt like it might attract attention. Even the trainees who had been grinning earlier chewed with their eyes up, listening for movement in the webbing and the sky.

Few of them had real experience fighting at night.

Daylight fights were brutal but honest, you saw the threat coming. You saw where your feet landed. You could read faces and signals. Night took half of that away and replaced it with imagination.

Ludger didn’t let imagination run the camp. He’d split the watch in a way that made complaints pointless. Half would guard the ship first. Half would take the second.

Even rotation. Same risk. Same fatigue. Same experience earned. No one got to hide behind excuses or seniority.

As the last bites were swallowed and gear was checked, the first watch began moving, lines forming, Ironhand hands leading them back across the stone bridge in disciplined groups. Lanterns stayed low. No bright flame. No loud voices.

Just boots and rope and the quiet clink of metal. Ludger watched them go for a moment, expression unreadable. Then his gaze drifted toward the beach.

Viola stood alone near the shoreline, backlit by moonlight, staring out at the dark ocean like she was trying to punch the horizon with her eyes. Every few seconds she bent, picked up a stone, and threw it hard into the surf.

Plunk.

Another stone.

Plunk.

Each throw carried a little more force than necessary, a little more irritation than she’d admit to. Like the ocean was responsible for Lucius. For the Regent. For Torvares politics. For spiders. For the world refusing to stop changing.

Luna lingered farther back, silent as a shadow, not intruding, just present enough that Viola wasn’t truly alone.

Ludger didn’t call out to her. He understood that kind of anger. Sometimes you don’t want comfort. You wanted something to hit that wouldn’t break and wouldn’t talk back. The ocean was perfect for that.

Plunk.

Viola threw another stone into the darkness and watched the ripples disappear as if nothing had happened. Which, tonight, felt a little too familiar.

Luna approached like she always did, quiet enough that the wind made more noise than her steps.

Viola heard her anyway. Not because Luna was loud. Because Viola was listening to everything tonight, whether she wanted to or not.

Another stone skipped once and vanished into the dark. Luna stopped a few paces away, gaze angled toward the ocean. She waited long enough that it didn’t feel like an interrogation. Then she spoke.

“What are you thinking?”

Viola exhaled through her nose. “Lots.”

Before Viola could decide which “lots” she was willing to admit out loud, Luna asked a different question, calm, precise, and annoyingly accurate.

“Is it Ludger’s decision about spider silk?”

Viola’s hand tightened around the next stone. She didn’t throw it immediately.

Then she nodded. “Yeah.”

Luna didn’t push. She rarely did. She just stood there, present, watching the sea like it might reveal a secret if it got tired.

Viola rolled the stone between her fingers, feeling grit bite into skin. “I don’t blame him,” she said, quiet. “His reasoning is solid. It’s… smart.”

Luna’s eyes flicked to her. A silent go on.

Viola swallowed, irritation twisting into something sharper. “But I don’t like not knowing.”

Luna didn’t move. Viola stared out at the black water. “Something happened between him and my grandfather. I can feel it. It’s not open hostility, not really. More like… two people deciding they’ll cooperate, but never fully trust each other again.”

She tossed the stone hard.

Plunk.

A small ripple. Gone.

Viola’s jaw tightened. “And it’s starting to bother me.”

Because Ludger wasn’t just some guild kid playing at leadership. He was family. Complicated, infuriating, but family. And Lord Torvares wasn’t just a political shield, he was the foundation holding half her world upright.

Viola glanced sideways. “You know, don’t you.”

Luna’s expression didn’t change. That was enough to answer.

Viola held the look for a moment longer, then looked away again.She could force it. Demand it. Pull rank the way nobles did when they were insecure. But she didn’t. Not tonight.

Not with the ocean swallowing everything they threw at it, and the island behind them wrapped in silk like a warning. Viola breathed in, slow, then out.

“I’m not going to make you explain,” she said.

Luna’s voice was soft. “Thank you.”

Viola snorted once, not amused. “Don’t thank me. I just… I don’t want to be blind.”

Luna said nothing. The waves rolled. The sky stayed dark. The world kept its secrets.

And Viola stood there, throwing stones into the ocean, trying to convince herself that patience was the same thing as control.

Viola sighed. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dramatic… But it carried enough weight that Luna’s gaze shifted, subtle, alert, the way it did when she heard a threat. Viola had a lot on her plate too.

Lucius, alive but unstable, turning his own title into a bargaining chip without even realizing it. The coast hanging over a regent’s pen. The guild stepping into bigger waters, literally and politically.

And then there was the quieter part, the one nobody bothered to ask her about because everyone assumed she’d “handle it.”

She’d just turned fifteen.

And most people already treated her like an adult.

Not kindly. Not gently. The way the world treated capable young nobles: as if childhood was a luxury that could be confiscated the moment you showed competence. Expectations piled onto her shoulders because she could carry them, and every mistake would be judged like she’d had decades of practice.

She stared at the sea, jaw tight. Luna watched her, troubled by that sigh in a way she couldn’t fully name.

Because Luna was older, yes, but she had even less experience in these kinds of matters. Politics. Family fractures. The quiet war between loyalty and practicality. All of it.

Her world was simpler by design: watch, protect, kill if needed, disappear if told.

She only had any experience at all because she’d been close to Viola, close enough to overhear conversations, close enough to see the sharp edges behind noble smiles, close enough to learn that words could be weapons without ever drawing steel.

But learning by proximity wasn’t the same as living it. Viola was living it.

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