Chapter 611

Ludger went still.

Not the dramatic kind of stillness—no clenched jaw, no sudden glare. Just the quiet pause of a mind snapping pieces into place.

Elaine’s words weren’t long.

They didn’t need to be.

“One week. Counting from yesterday.”

That was the response.

And it gave Ludger everything he needed.

It wasn’t a negotiation. It wasn’t even the

shape

of a negotiation. No concessions. No questions. No attempt to meet him halfway, or pretend to.

Just a deadline.

A leash being presented like a gift.

Ludger’s eyes lowered for a heartbeat, watching the twins tug on his sleeve like the world was simple. Then he looked back up, and the calm in his face sharpened into resolution.

Because that answer meant only two things.

Either the Regent genuinely believed the Lionsguard had no power to negotiate, no leverage worth respecting, so he didn’t bother playing the game.

Or the offer was so good, in his mind, that it didn’t matter what they wanted. A Viscount title. Lucius’ territory. Recognition.

Too good for the likes of them.

A deal you didn’t refuse unless you were stupid or suicidal.Ludger’s mouth flattened. He didn’t feel confused anymore. He felt clear.

Ludger shifted the twins higher on his arms, one squirming, one trying to steal his scarf again, and looked at Elaine.

“What did Father do when he heard that?”

Elaine’s expression tightened for a heartbeat, then smoothed back into calm.

“He went to talk with Torvares,” she said. “He should arrive… tomorrow. Or today, depending on the road.”

Ludger nodded once. That fit.

Arslan would go straight to the one person who could shield them politically while the Regent tightened the clock. Looking for protection or support.

As Elaine turned to settle the twins’ discarded blankets, Ludger’s mind rewrote his plans without needing paper. The manuals on Vitality Well and Overdrive were good, necessary, but a week wasn’t enough time to turn average recruits into disciplined aura-users.

He needed something that scaled faster. Something that didn’t rely on weeks of body conditioning and breath work before results showed. Something that could multiply force immediately. Something that would shock everyone in one way or the other and make them think twice about trying to push them around.

His thoughts snapped back to Silva—pact warmth, summoning, the way a single beast shifted how people looked at him on the street.

Then to Shera’s method. Then to the simplest math in the world: One fighter becomes two. Two becomes

four

if you do it right. Ludger’s eyes narrowed.

Magic Tamer.

He could teach that. Not perfectly, not in a day, but enough to start. Enough to lay the foundation for pacts, for bonded allies, for a guild that suddenly had teeth in places the Regent’s rail lines couldn’t easily choke.

Elaine looked at him, reading the shift in his posture the way mothers did, like it was a language.

“What will you do?” she asked quietly.

Ludger didn’t hesitate.

“I won’t let them control us,” he said.

His voice stayed calm, but it carried weight. The kind of weight that came from a decision already made. Then he added, matter-of-fact, like he was discussing supply counts:

“I’m going to double the guild’s power. Immediately.”

Elaine blinked, a faint crease forming between her brows. “How are you—”

She stopped herself. Because Ludger’s gaze had already gone distant, not daydreaming, but calculating. Stepping through actions in order. Counting time. Counting people. Counting the cost.

Elaine watched him for a moment longer, then simply nodded, letting him move. He didn’t need her questions right now. He needed room to think.

And as Ludger carried the twins, small chaos in his arms, cold resolve in his chest, his steps already had direction. Ludger handed the twins back to Elaine with practiced efficiency.

One went willingly, already yawning again, small hands slipping off his sleeve like they’d decided the ambush quota was met. The other clung for a heartbeat longer, then finally let go with an offended little huff.

Elaine took them both, shifting her grip like it was second nature. She looked like she wanted to ask more, about the north, about the deadline, about the way Ludger’s eyes had gone colder in the last few minutes.

Ludger didn’t give her the opening. He was barely back, and he was already leaving again.

Because the problems that had been gnawing at him for the past month weren’t going to solve themselves while he played house.

“Rest,” he told Elaine simply.

Then he was out the door.

Lionfang’s streets felt different after the north, warmer, busier, more civilized. Which also meant more eyes, more gossip, more invisible hands trying to shape the town without ever showing their faces.

Ludger ignored it and walked with purpose. His destination was obvious. Haukor’s forge.

The beastman’s place always sounded alive before you even saw it, hammer strikes, bellows, the low hiss of quenching metal, the constant smell of heat and work. It was one of the few places in Lionfang where problems were solved by hitting them hard enough until they behaved.

Ludger stepped inside. Haukor looked up from his anvil, nostrils flaring. Then he frowned.

Not his usual “boy is here with trouble” frown.

A different one. A beastman frown. The kind that came with scent.

“You smell of a beast,” Haukor said bluntly.

Ludger’s eyelid twitched. “I washed.”

Haukor’s ears angled back. “You washed badly.”

Ludger did not dignify that with a reply. He’d scrubbed his face. He’d used soap. He’d even rinsed twice. And yet somehow, Silva’s saliva had achieved what most poisons couldn’t:

Persistence.

It clung to him like something else.

A few apprentices nearby stopped pretending they weren’t listening. One of them sniffed the air and made a face.

Haukor leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “Dire wolf.”

Ludger nodded once.

Haukor stared at him like that explanation came with a dozen missing steps, then grunted. “Of course.”

Ludger didn’t waste time.

“I need more bracers,” Ludger said.

Haukor’s frown deepened. “One pair?”

Ludger looked him in the eye. “A lot.”

The apprentices shifted, suddenly alert. “How many?” one of them asked before Haukor could.

Ludger didn’t give a number yet. He didn’t have to. The intent was enough.

Haukor’s gaze sharpened. “What for?”

Ludger answered in the same calm tone he used when announcing something that would make sensible people nervous.

“To give everyone some feline partners.”

Silence hit the forge. A hammer paused mid-swing somewhere in the back.

Haukor stared at him, expression unreadable for a long moment, then slowly set his own hammer down like the conversation had just turned from routine work to something heavier.

“…Feline,” Haukor repeated.

Ludger nodded once, already thinking about sizes, reinforcement points, and how to make bracers that could survive claws without ruining the wearer’s wrists.

“Yes,” Ludger said. “Fast. Durable. Cheap enough to mass-produce.”

Haukor’s ears flicked, and his eyes narrowed like he was looking at a boy and realizing, again, that the boy was a disaster with a plan.

“Tell me,” Haukor rumbled, voice low, “you’re not about to do something stupid.”

Ludger’s expression didn’t change.

“I am,” he said honestly. “But it’s the kind of stupid that works.”

Ludger left the forge just like that. No long explanation. No comfort. No easing people into the idea.

He’d asked for

a lot

of bracers and mentioned “feline partners” like it was as normal as ordering nails, and then he was gone, leaving Haukor and the apprentices staring at each other in that shared silence that meant

what is he planning now?

Ludger didn’t slow until he cleared Lionfang’s outskirts.

Snow crunched under his boots as he hit open ground, breath steady, body warm from habit and training. He ran, not sprinting at maximum output, not burning himself out, just fast enough that thoughts couldn’t catch him unless he allowed them to.

Then he reached into the pact.

A tug, an intention, and…

Feral Ally Summoning.

Silva appeared beside him in a ripple of air and mana, massive paws hitting snow with a soft

whump

. The dire wolf’s head turned toward Ludger immediately, ears perked, body coiling—

Ready to tackle. Ludger didn’t give him the chance. He was already running again the instant Silva fully manifested, boots digging in, stride lengthening.

Silva blinked once, offended, then surged forward with a low growl, accelerating like a storm given legs. Within seconds he was pacing Ludger, matching speed with effortless power. Ludger glanced sideways without breaking stride.

“Help me find a lot of your friends,” he said. “As many as possible.”

Silva’s ears flicked back. He let out a short howl that sounded suspiciously like a question.

Why?

Ludger didn’t slow. He didn’t look away from the white horizon ahead.

“Because they’re going to be our newest allies,” he said.

Silva’s paws hammered the snow, breath steaming, still clearly unconvinced. Ludger’s tone stayed dry. Practical. Almost amused at the absurdity of saying this out loud.

“Look,” he added, “we already work with northerners who solve their problems and disagreements with headbutts.”

As if on cue, Silva sneezed.

Ludger continued, eyes forward. “Adding feral beasts to the guild isn’t going to be the thing that breaks our reputation.”

Silva’s head turned slightly, amber eyes narrowing like he was considering it.

Then he loosed a longer howl, less question, more signal, rolling across the snowfields like a call meant for ears that understood the language of teeth and winter. Ludger let the sound stretch out ahead of them and felt a thin, grim satisfaction settle in his chest.

If the Regent wanted to put a leash on Lionsguard… Then Lionsguard would grow fangs.

Silva’s ears flicked forward, and his whole body tightened like he’d just received a command in a language he liked. Then he accelerated. Not by a little.

By enough that the snow behind him sprayed out in a low rooster tail, paws biting and releasing with ruthless efficiency. The dire wolf didn’t look back to ask if Ludger could keep up, he simply assumed Ludger would, because that was what pacts meant.

Ludger lengthened his stride and followed, breath steady. The north had taught him that “fast” was useless if you arrived broken.

Silva led him across rolling white terrain, weaving between ridges and wind-carved dips as if he knew every dead angle where scent didn’t carry. The wolf’s nose lifted and lowered in quick checks, reading the air like it was a map.

The northerners didn’t hunt dire wolves for food.

Not because they couldn’t, but because it was a hassle and, more importantly, because eating a predator like that felt like a waste of time since they hunted other troublesome creatures. They might kill one if it threatened the camp, sure. They’d respect the fight.

But they didn’t

farm

them. So the numbers shouldn’t be small. The problem was that dire wolves didn’t like being counted.

They didn’t build dens where people could find them. They didn’t leave obvious trails unless they wanted someone to follow. They lived in the kind of places you only reached if the cold didn’t scare you and the silence didn’t make you turn around.

Silva didn’t hesitate. He did. He ran like he was returning to something that belonged to him. Ludger kept pace, mind already shifting away from legs and breath and into the real obstacle.

Finding them wasn’t the hard part.

Convincing them

would be.

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