Chapter 565

At home, Ludger explained the situation over dinner.

He did it the way he did everything: clean facts, minimal drama.

Imperial seal. Summons to the capital. “Recent actions” meaning the road-rails and what they implied. The Regent’s likely intent. The risk of being turned into a national infrastructure tool.

The twins listened for a while, then got bored and started their usual campaign against everyone’s plates. Elaine redirected them with the efficiency of a woman used to handling chaos with one hand.

Once the twins were finally put to bed, the house changed.

The warmth stayed, but the

atmosphere

went tight, like the walls themselves were paying attention now.

Arslan and Elaine sat at the table with Ludger, and for the first time that evening, nobody pretended this was just another problem to schedule.

Ludger, unfortunately, was still Ludger.

He spoke like the Regent was just another person sending an annoying letter. Like it was an inconvenience, not an Empire shifting its weight toward Lionfang.

He was trying to keep working instead, planning, sorting, moving on to the next step, because that was how he handled pressure.

It was understandable. But the way he treated the Regent, like anyone else, wasn’t.

Elaine’s eyes narrowed slightly, not angry, but sharp with the kind of protective seriousness that didn’t allow foolishness.

Arslan sighed first, rubbing the side of his face.

“You’re making light of it,” Arslan said.

Ludger tilted his head. “I’m not.”

“You are,” Arslan replied, calm but firm. “Maybe not with jokes. With attitude.”

He leaned forward a little. “Treating the Regent like anyone else is a bad idea, Ludger. Not because he’s special. Because he has the power to make your life complicated with a signature.”

Ludger’s expression didn’t change, but he didn’t argue. Arslan continued, more practical now.

“I’m bad at negotiating,” he admitted. “I’m good at telling people ‘no’ and making them believe it. That’s not the same thing.”

He glanced toward the door as if Yvar might appear out of thin air.

“So I’ll take Yvar,” Arslan said. “Just in case. He’ll catch traps I don’t see. He’ll handle the language. He’ll keep the paperwork clean.”

Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly. “He’ll hate traveling.”

“He’ll hate dying more,” Arslan replied.

Elaine finally spoke, voice calm and cutting through the tension like a knife through cloth.

“You shouldn’t decide anything there.” Elaine said.

Arslan didn’t deny it.

Elaine nodded, as if that confirmed her point.

“You going alone and looking lost is probably the best option,” she said.

Arslan blinked. “Elaine.”

Elaine didn’t even glance at him. Her eyes stayed on Ludger.

“If you look too competent,” she continued, “they’ll try to pin decisions on him. They’ll push. They’ll corner him into commitments.”

She paused, then added, blunt and almost amused, “If you look lost, they’ll explain. They’ll show their hand. They’ll talk too much. And he can nod and buy time.”

Arslan stared at her for a moment, then let out a slow breath.

“…That’s vicious,” he said.

Elaine’s expression didn’t change. “It’s accurate.”

Ludger sat back, absorbing it. He didn’t love the idea of sending Arslan into the capital like bait. But he also understood the logic. Time. Information. Control.

And if the Regent wanted to treat Lionfang like a tool, then the first step wasn’t to fight him.

The first step was to make him reveal exactly what he planned to build, and what he was willing to pay. Ludger nodded once.

“Fine,” he said.

Then, dry as ever, he added, “I’ll tell Father to practice looking confused.”

Arslan groaned. Elaine’s mouth twitched. And the tension in the room eased, just a fraction, because at least now they had a plan.

The next morning, Arslan went straight to find Yvar.

Not at the training yard. Not at the forge. In the office wing, where paper and deadlines lived and where Yvar was most dangerous.

Yvar already had maps out when Arslan arrived, because of course he did, route options, supply estimates, travel times, the kind of planning that made the road feel smaller even when it wasn’t. Arslan shut the door behind him and sat down without being invited.

Yvar looked up. “So.”

Arslan rubbed his jaw. “So.”

They both knew what that meant. For a moment, neither spoke. Then Yvar exhaled.

“This is insane,” Yvar said.

Arslan’s brows lifted. “You mean Ludger.”

“Yes,” Yvar snapped. Then he caught himself, lowered his voice, and tried again with professionalism. “He doesn’t want to be looked down upon. He doesn’t want to be ordered around. He doesn’t want to be forced into anything.”

Arslan nodded. “And?”

“And it’s still a bad idea to act like this,” Yvar said, sharper again. “You don’t treat the Regent like a random merchant who wandered into Lionfang with a complaint. You don’t ‘teach him a lesson’ by refusing a summons. That’s how you get audits, inspections, and a polite detachment of soldiers ‘for everyone’s safety.’”

Arslan listened, expression steady. “I know.”

Yvar’s eyes narrowed. “Then why are we doing it this way?”

Arslan leaned back slightly and folded his hands.

“Because Ludger is right about one thing,” Arslan said. “If we show them our full capability and act eager, we become a tool. If we act fearful, we become prey.”

Yvar’s jaw tightened. “So we play dumb.”

“We buy time,” Arslan corrected. “We control the pace. We make the cooperation less bothersome for him.”

Yvar stared. “How.”

Arslan tapped the map once. “Excuses.”

Yvar’s expression soured. “I hate excuses.”

“Good,” Arslan said. “Then make them convincing.”

He leaned forward, voice calm.

“We tell them it takes preparation,” Arslan said. “Time. Mana. Materials. Teams. Surveying routes. Stabilizing ground. Reinforcing weak sections. It’s not a spell you cast once and forget. It’s infrastructure.”

Yvar’s eyes sharpened despite himself. “True.”

“We make them hear the word

maintenance

,” Arslan continued. “Often. We make them understand that even stone rails require monthly checks. That failures happen. That rushing it creates disasters they’ll be blamed for.”

Yvar nodded slowly, already seeing the framework.

“And,” Arslan added, “we say it plainly: it takes a lot of mana to make the rails.”

Yvar’s mouth tightened. “That will make them ask for your son.”

Arslan’s gaze stayed steady. “And we say he’s busy keeping the north stable.”

Yvar paused, then nodded once. “That… can work?”

Arslan exhaled. “It has to.”

Yvar leaned over the map and began scribbling notes with quick, precise strokes, irritation turning into planning the way it always did for him.

“Alright,” Yvar said. “We’ll build a timeline. A staged proposal. Limited scope. Controlled output.”

Arslan nodded. “Good.”

Yvar looked up again, eyes serious. “And Ludger?”

Arslan’s mouth twitched faintly. “He’ll keep building his leverage while we talk.”

Yvar sighed, long and tired.

“Of course he will,” he muttered.

Arslan leaned back, watching the archivist work.

They argued for a while longer, not about routes or supplies, but about Ludger himself.

About pride and danger. About refusing to be ordered and the reality of an Empire that didn’t like being told “no.” In the end, they didn’t agree on whether Ludger’s attitude was wise. But they agreed on what they had to do next:

Buy time. Control the narrative. And make the capital understand that stone rails weren’t a free service you demanded. They were a resource you bargained for.

They went over it three different ways, because Yvar didn’t trust a plan until it survived being attacked from every angle. Arslan sat through it all with a patient face and a tired spine.

He was used to battlefield plans, simple, brutal, honest.

This was a different kind of war. One where the weapon was a sentence you couldn’t take back. Yvar finished a page of notes, set his quill down, and looked up with the expression he got when he’d finally reached the point he’d been circling around.

“We need Torvares at the table,” Yvar said.

Arslan didn’t respond right away.

His eyes slid off the map, off the ledger, off the neat little “pilot route proposal” they’d drafted to buy time, and onto the wall like he’d found a crack worth studying.

His face went complicated.

Not “no.” Not “yes.”

More like:

That’s correct, and I hate it.

“Torvares,” Arslan repeated slowly.

Yvar nodded once, already braced to argue. “His word has weight. Real weight. The capital doesn’t dismiss him as frontier noise. If he’s present, the negotiation changes. We stop being ‘a guild asking favors’ and become ‘a political factor.’”

Arslan rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed through it.

“I know,” he muttered.

“Then we bring him,” Yvar pressed. “This isn’t a trade dispute. This is infrastructure with military implications. If we show up alone, they’ll treat us like contractors. If Torvares is sitting there, they’ll treat us like a faction.”

Arslan’s jaw tightened. Because Yvar wasn’t wrong.

Torvares had influence, enough that the Regent would measure words instead of throwing them. Enough that an “imperial request” would shift into “imperial discussion,” which was exactly what they needed.

Time. Buffer. Distance.

Arslan groaned, low and pained. “You realize what you’re asking.”

Yvar’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. I’m asking us to win.”

Arslan let that sit, then glanced at the door like Ludger might appear and hear the name and decide to punch the building. Everyone

knew

Ludger and Torvares were at odds.

It wasn’t a secret. But only Arslan knew why.

And that “why” wasn’t something he could throw into a planning meeting. Not without turning it into a weapon for anyone listening, imperial clerks, noble spies, even well-meaning allies.

So he couldn’t explain it. Which meant, to everyone else, the conflict looked like the usual frontier nonsense: pride, control, family tension, stubbornness.

Not serious. Not dangerous. Not the kind of fracture that could open at the worst time and swallow people whole. Arslan stared at the map until the lines blurred slightly.

“Ludger will be mad,” he said finally.

Yvar’s expression didn’t soften. If anything, it sharpened. “He can’t complain.”

Arslan looked up. “He absolutely can.”

“He

can

,” Yvar corrected, “but he shouldn’t. His goal is to buy time. Torvares buys time. Torvares buys legitimacy. Torvares buys a shield between us and the Regent deciding to ‘nationalize’ our work.”

Yvar leaned forward and tapped the paper once.

“This is the difference between ‘we’ll consider it’ and ‘you will do it,’” Yvar said. “The Regent writes a letter and expects the world to move. With Torvares there, the Regent has to negotiate like an adult.”

Arslan held Yvar’s gaze, then looked away again. He couldn’t even argue. The logic was clean. And clean logic was the hardest thing in the world to kill when it was inconvenient.

He let out a long sigh and leaned back in his chair, eyes lifting to the ceiling like the roof beams might give him a kinder alternative. They didn’t. He never thought being too successful could be so troublesome.

He’d thought success meant fewer fires. Instead, it just meant the fires got bigger, smarter, and started arriving on thick paper with wax seals. Arslan closed his eyes for a heartbeat.

Then he opened them and nodded, slow, resigned.

“Fine,” he said. “We bring Torvares.”

Yvar exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for ten minutes. “Good. I’ll draft the approach.”

Arslan’s mouth twitched faintly. Not a smile, more like pain trying to become humor and failing.