Torvares was still shielding Viola. That thought sat oddly in his mind. Viola was almost eighteen.
In this world, that should have been more than enough for no one to treat her like a child. She had grown stronger, sharper, and far more useful than most people her age. She could fight. She could think. She had enough pride, will, and nerve to stand in front of problems that would make others step back.
But Torvares still held part of the world between her and himself. Still filtered certain uglier truths. Still carried some burdens without letting them fully land on her. Ludger understood why. And still found it slightly irritating. Not because Torvares was wrong, exactly. But because shielding someone too long had a way of preserving their weak points alongside everything else.
Viola had grown. That much was obvious. Yet she still needed one more push. Something real enough to force the last change. Something that would make her stop standing near adulthood and actually step into it.
Ludger looked out over the road from the carriage seat as that thought settled in his mind.
He wondered, for a brief moment, whether Lucius would have been the one to do it. The fool had enough weight in her life for that. Enough shared history. Enough friction. Enough idiocy.
The kind of person who, through one meaningful act or one properly terrible mistake, might force someone else to grow simply because standing still was no longer possible.
But Lucius was not here. The moron was still in another world, trying to understand some magic language in exchange for the power to reverse his father’s death.
Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly as he thought about that. Even now, the whole thing sounded insane. Chasing forbidden knowledge across worlds. Trying to grasp power tied to death itself. Betting everything on the chance that understanding a language no normal person should know could somehow pull back what had already been lost.
It was reckless. And absurd enough that Lucius could only either fail completely or come back changed in ways none of them would enjoy. Probably both.
Ludger exhaled quietly through his nose.
Lucius, too, needed a push to grow. Actually, that was putting it too gently. He needed several. Preferably heavy ones. The kind that cracked stubbornness, fantasy, and old softness apart until something harder formed underneath.
Because wanting power was not enough. Pain was not enough. Loss was not enough. Plenty of people suffered and remained the same fools afterward, just sadder and more dangerous. Growth demanded more than that.
Ludger knew it.
And the thought lingered a little longer than he liked, because once he followed it far enough, it circled back in an annoying direction.
He himself needed a push too. Not in the simple sense. Not strength. Not discipline. Not the ability to endure. He had those already. But something else. Some shift he could feel approaching without fully grasping yet.
He was about to become an adult by the standards of this world. People would look at him differently. Expect different things. Speak to him with less room for excuse. Yet the line itself meant little. He had already crossed too many harsher ones long ago for a birthday to truly matter.
Still…
There was a difference between carrying weight early and actually stepping into the shape the world expected of a grown man. Ludger looked ahead at the road, silent as the carriage moved on. Viola needed a push. Lucius needed one too. And, irritatingly enough, so did he.
The only question was what form that push would take. And whether any of them would like the people they became after it.
At the same time, Luna had started acting a little strange around him. Not in any obvious way. That was what made it worse.
If she had been openly annoyed, colder than usual, or visibly distracted, Ludger could have handled that. Those things had shape. They could be measured, answered, or ignored.
But this? This was subtler. Too subtle.
It came in small moments. The way her gaze lingered half a second too long before sliding away. The way she seemed to notice where his posture shifted when he was tired. The way her eyes occasionally moved over him with a calm, quiet focus that felt far too clinical to be accidental.
More than once, Ludger had the deeply unpleasant feeling that Luna was either about to stab him… Or trying to figure out exactly where to do it. That was a bit terrifying. Not because he thought she actually would.
Probably.
But because Luna was an assassin. A very good one, too. And Ludger himself had been helping her improve.
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Teaching her tricks. Sharpening her habits. He had shown her ways to move faster, ways to think ahead, ways to build pressure quietly without announcing it.
Which meant there were moments now, brief, annoying little moments, when he found himself wondering whether he was strengthening the person who might one day claim his life.
That thought should have been ridiculous. Instead, it felt just plausible enough to be irritating. Ludger kept his expression calm as the carriage rolled onward, but inwardly the idea sat there like a splinter.
Luna remained composed. Watchful. Too composed. And every time he caught that quiet attention from the corner of his eye, the same thought brushed against him again.
If she ever decided to kill someone properly, she would be troublesome.
Very troublesome. That was, admittedly, part of the point of teaching her. Still, there was something useful buried under the discomfort.
Because if someone could make him feel that way, if someone close enough to observe him, skilled enough to analyze him, and sharp enough to hide it could create even a small sense of danger in him, then perhaps that meant he still had room to grow.
Probably a lot of it.
That was the irritating truth beneath the whole thing. Ludger was strong. Stronger than most. More capable than almost anyone his age had any right to be.
But if Luna’s quiet presence could make his instincts tighten even a little, then that meant there were still openings in him. Habits that could be read. Rhythms that could be studied. Weaknesses not yet fully covered simply because the right kind of eyes had not been on him often enough.
He did not like that.
Which meant it was valuable. Ludger looked ahead at the road and exhaled slowly through his nose. If Luna was unknowingly reminding him that he was still killable, then that was useful too.
Annoying. Slightly unsettling. But useful. And if he was, in fact, helping create the kind of assassin who could one day become a threat even to him…
Then he would simply have to stay ahead of her. That, at least, sounded reasonable.
Because if someone near him was growing sharp enough to someday slip a blade through his life, then the proper response was not to teach them less.
It was to become difficult enough that even trying would feel hopeless.
Ludger’s eyes narrowed faintly.
Yes. That was better. Much better.
So rather than letting the thought bother him too much, he filed it away where it belonged, with every other uncomfortable truth that could be turned into progress if handled correctly.
Even so, when Luna’s gaze brushed past him again a little later, calm and unreadable as ever, Ludger could not help but think one very simple thing.
I really need to get stronger.
The capital announced itself long before its walls fully came into view.
At first, it was the road.
The closer they got, the more crowded it became, not in the messy, desperate way of refugees or merchants fleeing bad weather, but in the swollen, restless way only a great city preparing for celebration could manage. Carriages rolled ahead and behind them in long uneven lines, their wheels biting into the packed earth while outriders, servants, traders, minor nobles, performers, and opportunists flowed around them like loose streams feeding a single enormous river.
Everyone was heading the same way. Toward the heart of the empire. Toward the emperor’s birthday. Even before the city itself rose on the horizon, the atmosphere had already changed.
The roadside inns were overflowing. Temporary stalls had been set up where there had been nothing before, with quick-handed vendors selling hot food, ribbons, polished trinkets, dyed cloth, flowers, roasted meat on sticks, sweet pastries dripping syrup, and cheap little carvings shaped like crowns, swords. Musicians played near the larger stopping points, some decent, some terrible, all loud enough to make sure no one ignored them. Children ran between wagons chasing each other with bits of colored cloth tied around their wrists. Drunken men shouted songs long before sunset. Guards tried and mostly failed to make the roads feel orderly.
The empire was dressing itself.
And like most large things trying to appear beautiful, it looked most impressive right where polish and chaos met.
As they drew nearer, the outer districts of the capital began to rise in view, and the sense of festivity only thickened. Banners hung everywhere.
Not just from walls and towers, but from inns, guild houses, archways, market poles, balconies, lamp posts, shrines, guard stations, and even the better-looking shops that wanted to appear wealthier than they really were. Imperial colors flooded the streets in layers, deep reds, golds, white silks, embroidered standards, long hanging cloths that caught in the breeze and turned the approaches to the city into corridors of color.
Fresh flowers had been brought in by the cartload.
Ludger could see them even from the carriage, woven into arches, pinned to balconies, tied around poles, draped over statues, and scattered in baskets before shrines and public squares. The smell of them mixed strangely with everything else: horse sweat, smoke, street food, perfume, wet stone, roasting nuts, packed bodies, wax, oil, and the faint metallic scent that always seemed to linger around large cities no matter how well they dressed themselves.
By the time they reached the first gate roads, the city felt alive in a different way.
Not peaceful. Not relaxed. Alive like a beast that had been washed, perfumed, draped in jewels, and told to smile while too many people climbed over its back. Everywhere Ludger looked, there was movement.
Lantern lines had already been strung overhead in the main avenues, ready for nightfall.
Even unlit, they transformed the streets. Glass globes, paper lanterns, colored crystals, and carefully caged mage-lights hung in long elegant chains between buildings, making it obvious what the capital intended to become once the sun dropped. Ludger could imagine it already, the city drowned in warm light, gold and red flames reflected in every polished window, noble estates glowing like stage sets, music and shouting flowing through the night while half the empire pretended it was united under joy instead of merely gathering where power demanded.
And yet the real order lay underneath all of that.
Ludger could see it. The hidden movement. The sharper eyes behind the festive mask.
Extra patrols on the rooftops. Quiet men watching crowds from shaded balconies. Servants too disciplined to really be servants. Carriages with curtains too thick. Nobles smiling too easily. Foreign guests with warriors close behind them. The visible celebration was only half the city. The other half was tension dressed in silk.
But the surface was still impressive.
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