Ludger looked at Rufas without changing expression.
The last time he had heard of him, the man had been chained to a wall, half-drugged, bleeding, and muttering to anyone who would listen that he hadn’t betrayed the Empire.
Now he was standing. Barely, perhaps. But standing. That alone said enough about how much effort had gone into keeping him alive after the escape.
Rufas’s gaze shifted once over the three figures beside Ludger, lingering very briefly on the masks and the spinning swords before returning to Ludger himself. His expression did not change much, but there was recognition in it. And caution. And the sort of tired intelligence that only grew sharper once survival started costing blood.
Around him, the hidden camp remained tense as drawn wire. Several of the armed men clearly wanted to rush forward. Several others clearly wanted to run. The rest were trapped in the more rational middle, where they understood that if Ludger had found them, then attacking first might simply turn their hiding place into a graveyard faster.
Rufas let out a slow breath.
“You do have a talent,” he said, “for finding trouble.”
Ludger’s mouth flattened faintly.
“I could say the same.”
That almost earned something like a smile from Rufas, but the expression died before it fully formed.
Fair enough. There wasn’t much in this situation worth smiling about. The night pressed in around the hidden camp while mana weapons gleamed in shaking hands and wounded bodies held themselves ready for violence they probably could not afford.
And in the middle of that tension, with the illusion broken and the silence stretched thin enough to tear, Ludger and Rufas Dalmoren finally stood facing each other again.
Rufas held Ludger’s gaze for a few more seconds, then asked the question without wasting time dressing it up.
“Did the Empire send you to hunt us as well?”
His voice stayed calm, but the camp behind him tightened anyway. A few grips on weapons shifted. Someone farther back muttered under their breath. The question mattered enough that even wounded men found a little more strength to listen.
Ludger answered just as plainly.
“Yes.”
A small ripple went through the hidden camp.
He let that sit for exactly one beat before adding, “That’s why I brought reinforcements.”
Rufas stared at him. Just stared. No immediate reply. No noble retort. No visible outrage. Just a long, flat look that somehow said more than most people managed with an entire speech.
Behind him, several of the others clearly did not understand what Ludger meant.
One of the armed men frowned. Another looked between Ludger and the three masked figures at his back as if trying to decide whether this was some kind of insult, threat, or private joke. A woman near one of the tents tightened her grip on a mana spear, eyes narrowing with visible suspicion.
Reinforcements? These three? From the way Ludger said it, Rufas understood there was more going on. The others, however, were still trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing.
Eventually, Eclaire let out a quiet breath and stepped forward.
Rowan moved with her, solid and steady as ever, while Jennifer followed with the look of someone already annoyed at being included in whatever ridiculous reveal was about to happen.
Then, without ceremony, the three of them removed their masks. The effect on the camp was immediate. Some of the edge vanished from the scene at once.
Not all of it. That would have been absurd. They were still standing beside Ludger while magic swords floated around them like a moving death sentence for bad decisions. But without the masks, the image shifted. They looked less like faceless operatives sent to drag people back in chains and more like what they actually were beneath the tension, dust, and danger.
Teenagers. Dangerous ones, certainly. But still teenagers. Rufas’s eyes widened. Then he dragged one hand down his face and planted it over his forehead in a full, deeply tired facepalm.
For the first time since Ludger entered the field, he looked like a man whose soul had simply given up trying to keep pace with the nonsense in front of him. Eclaire gave him a tight, forced smile.
It was the sort of smile people used when they were already regretting being recognized. Rufas lowered his hand slowly and stared at her for another second before turning back to Ludger.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
“…Why,” he asked, with the strained patience of a man walking across broken glass, “did you bring Lady Eclaire to a place like this?”
Ludger’s expression did not change.
“I could say I’m returning her,” he said. “After all, you were the ones scheming with Torvares to make her hide among the Lionsguard in the first place.”
That landed hard enough to make a few people in the camp glance at each other. Rufas closed his eyes for half a second. That was not quite an admission. It was, unfortunately, close enough.
Eclaire’s forced smile twitched faintly at the edges, then flattened out entirely. Jennifer looked between them with immediate interest, while Rowan remained silent in the way only Rowan could, present, alert, and very clearly listening to everything.
Rufas exhaled through his nose.
“This feels like the sort of conversation that should happen somewhere with fewer drawn weapons.”
“Probably,” Ludger said. “But that can wait.”
His voice stayed level, calm in a way that did nothing to make him less dangerous.
“I came here for answers. You want to stay alive long enough for your family to matter again. Conveniently, those goals don’t completely oppose each other yet.”
Ludger looked past Rufas then, letting his gaze sweep across the wounded camp, the battered survivors, the people still deciding whether to fear him, hate him, or gamble on him.
“We’re also here,” he said, “to help with negotiations.”
That got a reaction. Not loud. Not dramatic. But visible.
Several people in the camp looked openly confused. One looked insulted. Another seemed suspicious enough to assume the word negotiation was simply a more civilized term for surrender under threat.
Reasonable assumption, honestly. Rufas, at least, was smart enough to understand there was a real distinction.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Negotiations with whom?”
Ludger’s mouth flattened.
“With me first,” he said. “Then, depending on whether this turns into a conversation or a cleanup, with everyone else.”
That silenced the camp again. Because there it was. The truth beneath the dry tone and measured posture. Ludger had not come here as an executioner. Not yet. But he also had not come begging for trust, sympathy, or cooperation.
He had come as the first problem they needed to solve if they wanted any chance of surviving the problems behind him. Eclaire folded her arms and looked directly at Rufas now, the forced smile gone.
“We didn’t come here to drag you back in chains,” she said. “If that had been the goal, this conversation would already sound very different.”
A few people in the Dalmoren camp looked distinctly less reassured after that. Fair enough. Rufas looked from Eclaire to Rowan to Jennifer, then back to Ludger again.
The exhaustion in his face remained, but some of the resignation had shifted into something more focused. More careful. More dangerous in its own quiet way. That was better than panic.
At least intelligent people could be negotiated with. Eventually, Rufas gave a small nod.
“Then ask,” he said.
The camp behind him stayed tense, wounded, and uncertain, but no one rushed forward. No one fired. For the moment, that was enough. Ludger took one more step into the hidden camp, the swords still circling slowly around him like patient consequences.
“Good,” he said. “Let’s start with who helped you disappear this quickly… and whether helping you was an act of loyalty, desperation, or treason dressed in better manners.”
Ludger did not waste time easing into it.
“Where is Gustav?”
The question hit harder than if he had drawn a blade. Rufas’s body tensed immediately.
Not dramatically. He did not flinch back or suck in a sharp breath like a guilty fool in a tavern story. But the reaction was there all the same, visible in the slight tightening of his shoulders, the way his jaw locked for half a second, the shift in his eyes before control settled back over his face.
Ludger saw it.
Around them, the camp stayed quiet, but the silence changed. People who had only been anxious before were now listening with a different kind of focus. Because Gustav was not just another name in this mess. Not here. Not for these people.
Rufas looked at Ludger for a long moment. And in that silence, his mind started moving.
He had gone straight to Gustav. Straight to the center. And that meant one thing. He knew.
Maybe not everything. Rufas was not arrogant enough to assume that. But enough. More than he should. More than the Regent or the official investigation would ever willingly allow an outsider to know.
Rufas felt the pieces begin to connect whether he wanted them to or not. The three his uncle had found in the dungeon. The ones who should not have been there. The unknown cloaked figure who had struck the capital hard enough to turn the whole city into a nest of panic and political lies.
It explained why Ludger was standing here now with questions too precise for coincidence.
It even explained, at least in part, why the Empire seemed angrier than made sense for a simple family purge. Too many loose threads. Too much interference. Too many things that should have stayed buried had clearly refused to remain buried.
What Rufas could not yet explain was why. Why would Ludger risk that much for information? Why involve himself so deeply in the affairs of a collapsing great house already marked for execution?
Ludger watched him think for another second, then said, in the same flat tone as before, “We’re going to have a hard time talking if you decide to hold the entire conversation in your head first.”
That broke the silence cleanly.
He rubbed a hand once over his face, then turned slightly and gestured deeper into the hidden camp.
“Follow me,” he said.
The people behind him reacted at once. Rufas ignored all of them. At this point, pretending they had better options would have insulted everyone involved.
He looked back once at Ludger, expression drawn but steady.
“If you’re asking about Gustav that directly,” he said, “then this is not a conversation for the middle of camp.”
Ludger gave a small nod. That much, at least, was reasonable.
So Rufas turned and began walking deeper into the concealed encampment, limping slightly as he moved between the tents and low supply stacks. Ludger followed without hesitation, with Eclaire, Rowan, and Jennifer close behind. Around them, the hidden camp parted just enough to let them pass, the wounded and exhausted survivors watching in silence as if they were seeing the shape of their future and had not yet decided whether it looked more like salvation or disaster.
Honestly, it was probably both.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter