Viola exhaled first. Very softly.
“Well,” she muttered under her breath, her smile still fixed in place in case anyone was watching, “that went better than it could have.”
“It also went worse than I wanted,” Ludger said.
“That,” Torvares replied dryly, “is because you speak like a man trying to provoke a kingdom for sport.”
“I have my moments.”
“You’re exhausting.”
Luna’s gaze remained on Alphonse’s retreating figure for another second before she quietly asked, “Did you mean it?”
Ludger glanced at her. “About teaching the Emperor?”
She nodded once.
He looked away toward the crowd, toward the polished marble paths and golden lights and expensive people pretending they were not all quietly measuring one another.
“Maybe,” he said. “As a task, it’s manageable.”
Viola turned her head toward him. “Manageable?”
“Yes.”
“You would be teaching the Emperor.”
“That still sounds easier than dealing with half the people at this party.”
That pulled the faintest twitch from Luna’s lips. Torvares, however, did not look amused.
“He learned something important just now,” the old lord said, his tone low enough that only their group could hear.
Ludger already knew that.
“He learned I hate leashes,” Ludger said.
Torvares looked at him from the corner of his eye. “More importantly, he learned what kind of leash might actually work.”
That made Viola’s expression harden slightly. Luna said nothing, but the air around her seemed to cool a little. Ludger clicked his tongue inwardly.
Yes. That was the real problem. He had made his position clear, but in doing so, he had also shown the shape of the path he was actually willing to walk. No title. No permanent service. No polished cage.
But temporary work?
That door remained open. And men like Alphonse were exactly the type to remember doors. Ludger looked toward the Regent again as the man disappeared into another cluster of nobles.
“I know,” he said.
Torvares’ gaze lingered on him for a second before shifting away.
“I assumed as much.”
For a brief moment, none of them spoke. The music continued. The fireworks above the castle bloomed in gold and red. Somewhere farther down the garden, nobles laughed too loudly at something that probably was not funny.
Ludger wanted to leave more than ever. And somehow, that alone told him tonight was far from over. Viola was the first to break the silence after Alphonse disappeared into the sea of silk, jewels, and rehearsed smiles.
“You spoke rather well,” she said, glancing at Ludger from the side. “Given your usual behavior.”
Ludger looked at her. That alone was enough to make it clear what he thought of that statement.
“I just matched the other side’s friendliness,” he said.
Viola’s lips twitched faintly, like she was deciding whether to laugh or argue.
Ludger, meanwhile, kept his eyes on the crowd for another moment before adding, his tone as flat as ever, “Besides, there was no reason to pick a fight in this place when I wouldn’t be the only one affected by my words and actions.”
That made Viola’s expression soften just a little. Because yes, that was the real difference.
If Ludger had come alone, he might have pushed harder just to see what kind of mask slipped first. But Torvares was here. Viola was here. Luna was here. Anything he said too bluntly to a man like Alphonse would not stop at him. It would spread. Nobles were good at that. Better than rats, really. At least rats only chewed on food and wood instead of reputations, alliances, and lives.
Torvares gave him a brief glance from the side but said nothing. Luna also remained quiet, though Ludger could feel her attention on him. Not heavy. Not obvious. Just there. Viola folded one arm beneath her chest, the other hand lightly touching her elbow as she tilted her head.
“Are you really sure about that part regarding becoming the Emperor’s instructor?”
Ludger did not answer immediately. A brief silence followed. Not because he was struggling to come up with an answer, but because he was sorting through the most efficient version of the truth.
Then he finally spoke.
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“I said it without any real meaning behind it.”
Viola blinked. “You did?”
“Yes.”
Her brows rose. “You looked serious.”
“I was serious,” Ludger said. “About answering in a way that kept the conversation moving.”
That actually earned the faintest breath of amusement from Luna. Viola stared at him for another second, then sighed through her nose.
“Of course.”
Ludger looked toward the distant crowd, where Alphonse had already begun speaking to another noble group as if he had not just spent the last few minutes quietly testing the edges of everyone around him.
“If I accepted a position like that,” Ludger said, “people would assume too much.”
Torvares’ expression sharpened slightly at that. Viola lowered her arms. Ludger continued in the same calm tone.
“They would see it as me choosing a side. Or worse, as me gaining the Emperor’s favor directly. That alone would give plenty of people room to scheme against me.”
His gaze remained forward, distant and cold.
“And if they couldn’t reach me easily, they would start looking at the people around me instead.”
That last part settled over the group like a colder wind. Because no one there was naive enough to pretend otherwise. A court appointment was not just a job. Not in a place like this. It was a flag.
A declaration. And once that kind of attention landed on someone, it rarely stayed clean. Viola’s expression gradually lost the playful edge from before.
“So you won’t accept it,” she said.
Ludger finally looked at her.
“No,” he said simply. “I won’t.”
Not for the Emperor. Not for the capital. And definitely not for some smiling snake like Alphonse to use as a polished chain.
A teaching task somewhere far away, under normal circumstances, was one thing. Becoming linked to the imperial family in any visible way was something else entirely. It would turn every movement he made into an object of interest. Every success would attract envy. Every failure would invite attacks. Every conversation would become something others tried to interpret.
Too dangerous for too little gain. Viola studied him for a moment longer before letting out a quiet breath.
“That makes more sense.”
Torvares let out a faint hum.
“A rare moment of restraint.”
Ludger glanced at him. “Don’t get used to it.”
That earned the smallest flicker of amusement from the old lord. Viola shook her head lightly, though there was a faint smile on her lips now.
“You really are impossible.”
“No,” Ludger said. “Just not interested in volunteering for political suicide.”
Viola opened her mouth, paused, and then muttered, “When you put it that way, it does sound less glamorous.”
“There was never anything glamorous about it.”
Luna’s gaze shifted toward the nobles gathered beneath the lights, toward the laughing faces, polished ornaments, and expensive masks everyone wore without needing actual magic to make them.
“No,” she said quietly. “There really wasn’t.”
For a moment, the four of them stood there in silence again, surrounded by gold and music and the constant noise of people pretending this place was beautiful instead of dangerous.
Ludger exhaled slowly through his nose. The longer he stayed in the capital, the more certain he became of one thing. Out in the labyrinth, monsters at least had the decency to look like monsters. Before long, the noise of the party changed.
Not all at once.
There was no loud announcement that shattered the evening, no dramatic blast of trumpets forcing everyone into silence. It was subtler than that. The kind of shift that moved through a crowd of nobles like an invisible ripple. Conversations lowered. Postures straightened. Smiles became a little more deliberate. Eyes turned, one after another, toward the same direction.
The real reason for the celebration had finally arrived. The young Emperor stepped into the illuminated garden with the easy confidence of someone who had grown up with countless eyes on him.
He was just a boy. That was Ludger’s first thought. Not weak. Not foolish. Just young.
He had black hair and almost crimsom amber eyes, sharp and bright beneath the sea of golden lights cast by magic lamps and drifting fireworks overhead. He did not look much like Eclaire. Not in the face, not in the expression, not even in the way he carried himself. Still, that probably made sense. They had different mothers, and nobles liked complicating bloodlines almost as much as they liked poisoning each other with smiles.
Even so, there was something unexpectedly... normal about the boy.
He looked smart. Lively, too.
Not the empty, spoiled kind of lively Ludger had expected from a child raised in the middle of this glittering nest, but something more genuine. His smile came easily. His steps were light. He greeted those around him with visible enthusiasm rather than cold ceremony, and when nobles bowed or offered congratulations, he answered them with a wide grin that actually reached his eyes.
That alone made him stand out more than the jewels and silk around him.
One person after another stepped forward to congratulate him. Some praised his growth. Others praised his future. A few no doubt praised whatever version of him they thought would benefit them most a few years from now. The young Emperor accepted it all with surprising ease, smiling, speaking, thanking each of them without looking especially burdened by the weight of it.
Ludger watched from where he stood beside Torvares, Viola, and Luna.
Just like Alphonse before him, the boy moved from group to group, greeting people, exchanging words, letting the celebration orbit around him the way the moon might orbit a sun it could never escape. Two guards followed a short distance behind, disciplined and quiet, their eyes scanning the crowd with the kind of tension expected from men standing one mistake away from disaster.
The Emperor spoke with a cluster of elderly nobles first, then with a group of younger heirs, then with a few decorated officers standing beneath one of the marble arches draped in golden banners. Each time he smiled. Each time he seemed at ease.
Too at ease, maybe.
Or perhaps Ludger was just in a bad mood and surrounded by too much polished nonsense to trust anything that looked harmless.
Viola subtly adjusted her posture, some of her earlier confidence returning the closer the center of attention came to their side of the gathering. Luna remained calm as always, though her gaze tracked the boy carefully. Torvares’ expression gave away almost nothing.
Then it happened. The Emperor looked around. Not vaguely. Not randomly. He actually looked. His bright amber eyes swept across the garden, passing over nobles, foreign guests, servants, guards, lantern-lit tables, and clusters of polite smiles until they landed on Ludger.
And then the boy’s face lit up.
Not with simple recognition. With anticipation. His eyes practically shone.
It was immediate, obvious, and strangely genuine, as if he had been waiting for this exact moment all evening and had finally found what he wanted.
That should not have been a problem. If anything, it should have been easier than dealing with another masked conversation from Alphonse or another layered smile from Drarc.
And yet… Ludger’s body tensed. Subtly at first. A tightening in his shoulders. A slight stillness in his breath. Then more.
A strange sensation crawled across his back, cold and precise, so faint that he almost dismissed it on instinct. But it did not go away. If anything, it became clearer the longer the Emperor kept looking at him.
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