Viola stared at the horizon and let the wind do its job, cool her skin, clear her head, and remind her the world was bigger than whatever drama the capital was currently choking on.

A week ago, she would’ve sworn the biggest problems in her life were all imperial.

Lucius vanishing. Titles. Regents. Senators smiling while they sharpened knives under the table. Nobles games. The way everyone looked at her like fifteen meant ready for political combat.

She’d thought that was the peak of it. Now her assumptions were being dismantled piece by piece, and not gently.

Labyrinths that connected to unknown lands. Ruined megacities. Factories under the world. Mana water that refilled you like a potion. Monsters that bred like a plague and then, worse, labyrinths building bodies with human torsos and knitting spears out of silk like craftsmen.

Politics felt smaller when the ground itself could learn new rules. While she was still thinking, Ludger’s attention shifted.

He spotted Raukor walking along the edge of the camp in the distance, the big beastman silhouette moving with purpose, heading toward the forge wagon and the bracers project.

Ludger didn’t hesitate. He started after him. And, annoyingly for Viola, he didn’t put his shirt back on first.

Viola’s eyes flicked to his back as he moved, lean muscle, hard lines, water still dripping from his skin in cold trails.

He didn’t look like the type to care.

But Viola had grown up around nobles. She knew “accidental” displays when she saw them.

Oh. So he’s definitely showing off, she thought, offended on principle. Definitely my dad’s son.

She watched him close the distance with Raukor and disappear behind a cluster of trees and stacked web poles, already talking, Ludger’s posture straight, focused, like he was trying to pin down an answer that wouldn’t stop squirming.

Viola exhaled, then turned her head… And froze.

Luna was there. Not standing in the open. Of course not.

Half-hidden behind a tree trunk, body angled so the bark covered most of her, eyes tracking Ludger as he walked away. She wasn’t spying like a suspicious person.

She was watching like a guard. Like someone making sure a blade returned to its sheath safely. Viola’s brow furrowed. Because Luna’s gaze didn’t look casual. It looked… intent. Quietly tethered. Viola stared at her for a second longer.

Luna didn’t flinch. Didn’t pretend she hadn’t been there. She just stayed still, as if hiding was only a habit, not a confession.

Viola’s frown deepened. Not jealousy, not that simple. Something else.

A small, uneasy awareness that Luna’s world was always orbiting someone, and lately… that orbit might not be as centered on Viola as it used to be. Viola didn’t announce herself. She just walked straight toward the tree.

Sand shifted under her boots. A dry web strand snapped somewhere nearby. Normal noise, loud enough, though, that Luna should’ve adjusted long before Viola got close. She didn’t. Viola rounded the trunk and caught her in the shadow.

Luna’s eyes widened, just for a blink. A real flash of surprise. Then her face tried to reassemble itself into the usual calm mask, deadpan and unreadable.

It almost worked. Almost.

There was a faint sheen of sweat at her temple, and the way her shoulders were held was a fraction too stiff, like she’d been caught mid-thought.

Viola tilted her head. “What are you doing?”

Luna blinked once, slow. “Observing.”

Viola’s brows rose. “Observing what.”

“Learning,” Luna said, tone even. “New tricks. From Ludger. The ones he used in the other labyrinth.”

Viola stared at her for a beat, then let out a small huff through her nose.

“You’re usually a lot more skillful at staying hidden,” she said.

Luna’s eyes flicked away for the briefest moment. She didn’t answer. That silence said more than any excuse could.

Viola held the look, waiting for something, an explanation, a lie, a joke, anything that would make the moment feel normal again. Luna didn’t give it to her.

Instead she shifted her weight, gaze sliding past Viola toward the island’s center, toward the web-choked interior where the labyrinth’s mouth waited like a wound. After a few seconds, Luna spoke again, quiet.

“I’ll watch the entrance.”

Viola’s mouth tightened. “Luna—”

But Luna was already moving.

One step back into shadow, then another, and then she was simply… gone, melted into the white-and-green clutter of the island like she’d never been there at all. Viola stood alone by the tree, staring at the place Luna had been, frown deepening.

Because “observing” was an answer. It just wasn’t the whole one.

Viola stood there for a while after Luna vanished, staring at the tree trunk like it might give her answers if she glared hard enough.

Was this truly what it looked like? The thought came uninvited, sharp and uncomfortable.

And truthfully, Viola hated that her mind even went there.

Because she was far more inclined to believe Luna’s words than… the other possibility. Luna did observe. Luna did learn. Luna lived on edges and angles and tricks. If she said she was studying what Ludger did in the other labyrinth, that was believable.

It was the safer explanation. The one that didn’t turn her stomach into a weird knot. But the most logical explanation wasn’t always the one you wanted.

Luna had never been clumsy. Luna, who could disappear in a crowded hallway, had been caught hiding behind a tree like a trainee playing scout for the first time. Sweat on her face. Surprise in her eyes. A silence that didn’t feel like “professional secrecy.”

Viola exhaled slowly through her nose.

Or… she’s acting as in pretending that she is interested for whatever reason.

Clumsily. Almost offensively badly. Like someone trying on a feeling and not knowing what to do with their hands. It didn’t make sense.

Luna and Ludger were practically friends. Allies. They’d fought together. They’d bled together. They’d spent enough time within reach of each other that any childish fascination should’ve burned out and died.

And Luna knew Ludger. She knew him better than most people did.

He could be very annoying. Full of himself in that quiet way that somehow made it worse. A smartass who acted like saying less made him smarter. He had that infuriating habit of being right while looking bored. And when he did smirk, sharp, smug… It was the rotten cherry on top of an already irritating cake.

No one sane who knew him would imagine him as… that.

Not as some romantic target. Not as someone you stared at from behind a tree like a nervous girl. Viola rubbed her forehead, frustrated.

Maybe she was overthinking it. Maybe Luna really was just studying. Maybe the sweat was from running. Maybe the surprise was because Viola had approached without warning.

All plausible. All comfortable. And yet… the image wouldn’t leave. Luna watching Ludger walk away. Not like a scout tracking terrain. Like a person tracking a person.

Viola’s frown deepened as she turned back toward camp, the knot in her chest tightening into something she didn’t have a name for. Her best friend and her little brother…

She didn’t like uncertainty. And lately, uncertainty was becoming the only constant.

Viola walked back toward camp with that thought gnawing at her, and somewhere along the way it grew teeth.

Because if Luna was

… interested, if that was even a possibility, then the uncomfortable truth was that Ludger wasn’t some harmless little boy you could treat like a joke anymore.

He was Arslan’s son, sure, but he wasn’t Arslan. Their father had been widely known in his youth for his romantic escapades that mainly only served him.

Now, Arslan was a swordsman with a father’s presence.

Ludger was a problem wearing a child’s face.

He had fame now. The kind that spread without trying, carried by rumors that got sharper every time someone repeated them. The strength, obvious, undeniable, the sort that made grown men lower their voices around him without knowing why.

He had money. Resources. A guild that listened. A town that depended on him. Influence that wasn’t formal, but was real enough that even nobles had started to angle their words when his name came up.

And allies.

Not random hangers-on, powerful ones. Ironhand sailors. Beastmen scouts. Raukor. Northerners. Torvares’ protection still somewhat hanging over the whole operation like a shield.

He was diligent, too. Annoyingly so. He studied. He trained. He worked until the job was done, not until he felt good about it. He looked after his siblings like it was a duty carved into his bones. And when people around him were scared or stupid or simply young…

He was patient.

Not soft, never soft.

But patient in that brutal way where he’d drag you forward instead of leaving you behind.

Viola stopped mid-step, the realization hitting her like a slap.

Wait.

Despite all his flaws, his smug little smirk, his smartass silence, his infuriating “I’m right” face, Ludger was …a catch.

The thought hit her head like a foreign object.

She stared at the camp ahead as if it had betrayed her.

Her little brother, the same annoying kid who could make her want to kick a wall with one sentence, could be considered that?

Viola felt genuinely, completely, unfairly shocked.

Like reality had just rewritten a rule she’d been relying on for comfort.

She blinked hard, then muttered to herself, “No. Nope. I’m done.”

Because that was too much for her head.

It was time to go home. And take a vacation.

Preferably somewhere far away from spider islands, labyrinth politics, and the terrifying discovery that her little brother might actually be… desirable for her best friend.

She exhaled sharply and marched back into camp like she could physically outrun the thought before it settled in permanently.

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