Chapter 655

Arslan took a slow breath, then finally stepped into the room. He didn’t try to “fix” the mood.

He just stood beside Ludger and let the silence do its work, because sometimes the only thing a father could offer was presence, and the unspoken promise that even if the empire chose forgetfulness…

their house wouldn’t.

There was a knock at the office door. Not polite. Urgent, controlled, repeated twice like the person on the other side didn’t have time to wait for permission.

Before Arslan could answer, the latch clicked and Yvar slipped inside.

He looked like he’d run the whole way, coat dusted with road grit, hair slightly out of place, eyes sharp with that particular strain that came from numbers getting too big too fast.

“We have a problem,” Yvar said.

Ludger didn’t move. His face stayed flat, perfect pokerface, the kind that made it impossible to tell whether he was bored or about to commit a war crime.

Arslan straightened immediately. “What kind of problem?”

Yvar’s mouth tightened. “Rokram refugees.”

Arslan’s shoulders eased a fraction, then tightened again as he caught the weight in Yvar’s tone. “How many?”

Yvar exhaled once.

“Close to one thousand.”

The office went quiet. A hundred thousand wasn’t a “group.” It was a moving town.

It was mouths. Disease. Crime. Food logistics. Shelter. Water. Work. Security. Politics.

Ludger’s expression didn’t change. Arslan, on the other hand, visibly panicked in real time.

“A thousand Yvar,

why are they here?

” Arslan demanded. “Why aren’t they rebuilding Rokram? The empire, there are crews—”

Yvar lifted a hand slightly, as if to slow the words before they turned into shouting.

“I think I understand,” he said, measured. “They’re afraid.”

Arslan blinked. “Afraid of what? The ants are gone.”

Yvar’s eyes flicked toward Ludger for half a heartbeat, then back to Arslan.

“Afraid that it happens again,” he said quietly. “And this time… they won’t survive.”

The words landed heavy. Because it wasn’t irrational.

Rokram had been swallowed. The labyrinth hadn’t collapsed. The capital was already trying to make everyone forget. And the people who’d lived through the breach had learned the one lesson that mattered:

The empire can lose control.

Yvar continued, voice calm but grim.

“They saw who actually saved them,” he said. “They saw the Lionsguard on the lines. They heard the rumors. They heard that the guild’s kids didn’t die. That your people held. That Ludger—” he stopped short of saying too much in the Guildmaster’s office, then corrected, “—that our people can actually

keep them alive.

”

Arslan’s mouth opened, then shut.

“What do they want?” he asked, already knowing the answer was going to be worse than “food and shelter.”

Yvar’s gaze didn’t flinch.

“They want to work for the Lionsguard,” he said.

Ludger finally moved, just a small tilt of his head, eyes narrowing a fraction like he’d just been handed a problem shaped like an avalanche.

Arslan looked like someone had dumped a second war on his desk.

“A thousand…” he whispered, half to himself.

Yvar nodded once, crisp.

“They’re at Lionfang,” he said. “They’re already setting up outside the walls. And they’re not asking.”

He let that hang. Not asking meant desperation. Desperation meant volatility. Arslan’s hands tightened into fists. Ludger’s pokerface held.

But behind it, the gears were already turning, because whether the empire wanted to forget Rokram or not, Rokram had just arrived at their doorstep.

Arslan stared at Yvar like the man had just announced a flood was walking toward them on two legs.

“A thousand…” he repeated, slower this time, as if saying it again might make the number shrink into something manageable.

It didn’t.

He dragged a hand through his hair, then pointed vaguely toward the window—toward Lionfang’s walls, its tidy streets, its rebuilt market, the new shelters and stone rails and training yards that had only

just

begun to feel stable.

“We don’t have the room,” Arslan said, voice tightening. “We don’t have the resources. Even five arriving suddenly would be chaos, one thousand is a disaster.”

He wasn’t exaggerating.

Lionfang wasn’t a capital city.

It was a border town, rebuilt, fortified, growing, but still a town with a finite water supply, finite storage, finite latrines, finite food, and a population that already lived one bad harvest away from trouble.

Arslan started listing problems like he could stack them into a wall.

“Food,” he said first, because it was always first. “We feed our people, our recruits, our patrols. We have reserves, but not

that

kind of reserve. A thousand more mouths will strip the markets in days. They’ll start buying at any price, then stealing when coin runs out. And if we try to ration…”

He didn’t finish, because everyone in the room knew what rations did to crowds.

Crowds turned into mobs.

“Water,” Arslan continued, sharp. “Wells and aqueducts don’t triple because people are thirsty. If they set up outside the walls, they’ll drain every source around us. If they push inside, our own people start competing for buckets. That’s when fights start.”

He pointed at the floor, like the stone itself could argue back.

“Sanitation,” he said. “Latrines. Waste. Dead animals. Sickness. You cram that many people together without proper facilities and you don’t get a ‘camp’, you get a disease factory. Fever runs through them, then it runs through us. And once it starts, it doesn’t care about walls or titles.”

His jaw clenched.

“And security,” Arslan added. “We can’t vet one hundred thousand strangers in a week. Desperate people include thieves. Con artists. Violent men looking for a place to hide. Smugglers. Maybe worse. If even one percent are trouble, that’s a thousand troublemakers.”

A thousand.

In a town that relied on order and routine to function.

“And we’re a border town,” Arslan said, voice dropping. “We already have enemies watching us. A refugee mass is a perfect cover for infiltration. If someone wanted to slip agents in, or spread rumors, or start riots, this is how they’d do it.”

He looked at Yvar now, really looked, the panic in his eyes hardening into the kind of sober fear that came from responsibility.

“Wages and work,” he continued. “They say they want to work for Lionsguard, but we don’t have jobs for a hundred thousand. If we can’t employ them, they’ll sit. Idle people get angry. Hungry idle people get violent. And if we

do

employ them, we bankrupt ourselves or we replace our locals and create resentment.”

He could already see it: Lionfang citizens complaining that refugees got shelter while locals got taxed. Merchants blaming refugees for price spikes. Fights in the market. Guards stretched thin. Patrol routes weakened.

“And housing,” Arslan finished. “Even if Ludger turned half the countryside into stone shelters, that doesn’t solve fuel, bedding, cooking, storage, drainage—people don’t just need roofs. They need a functioning system, or that roof becomes a coffin during the first storm.”

He stopped, breathing hard, as if saying the problems out loud made them heavier.

“This town,” Arslan said, quieter now, “was rebuilt with effort and planning. A thousand refugees moving in suddenly would break it. Not because they’re bad people, because numbers don’t care about intentions.”

His gaze flicked to Ludger, still sitting there with that unreadable face, like a statue that was thinking.

Arslan swallowed.

“We can’t let Lionfang collapse,” he said, almost pleading with the room itself. “If we collapse, we help no one. And if we become a refugee camp too… then what was the point of saving anything?”

Ludger finally spoke.

His voice was calm, but it cut through Arslan’s spiraling list of problems like a blade through cloth.

“Yvar,” he said. “Is there a chance this is retaliation?”

Arslan blinked, turning to him. Ludger didn’t look at his father. His eyes stayed on Yvar, steady and sharp.

“From the Regent,” Ludger continued, “or Orleandul. They couldn’t take our spoils, so they send us a problem big enough to drown our town. Make our reputation take a hit after Rokram. Make Lionfang look unstable.”

His gaze narrowed.

“What are the chances some of those people are spies? Plants. People designed to spread chaos in our streets.”

Yvar didn’t flinch at the question. He’d expected it. He exhaled once and gave the honest answer.

“Low,” Yvar said. “But not null.”

Arslan’s jaw tightened. Ludger’s expression didn’t change. Yvar went on, practical as always.

“Most of them are doing what anyone would do after watching a city get eaten,” he said. “They’re moving toward places where labyrinths are farther away. They don’t trust words anymore, especially after hearing the capital is trying to bury the incident.”

He hesitated, then added the second piece.

“Lord Torvares is seeing migration pressure too,” Yvar said. “Not as large as ours, but it’s happening. People are spreading out, looking for walls and stability. Lionfang’s name traveled faster than the official reports did.”

Ludger leaned back slightly and stared at the ceiling. Not lazily. Like he was calculating. Arslan watched him with a father’s worry and a Guildmaster’s dread, waiting for the part where Ludger said something impossible.

Seconds passed. Then Ludger nodded once, small, decisive.

“Make a registration list with those new people,” he said to Yvar.

Yvar straightened. “A full census?”

“Names and trades,” Ludger said. “Family size. Origin district. Skills. Anything useful. Make it organized. Separate by work type. Builders. Farmers. Teamsters. Cooks. Smiths. Healers. Clerks. Anyone with experience.”

Arslan opened his mouth. Ludger held up a hand without looking at him, like he already knew the objection.

“We find jobs for them immediately,” Ludger said. “No idle masses. No wandering camps. No ‘waiting for the empire.’ Work, structure, routine.”

Yvar’s eyes sharpened with understanding. “And shelter?”

“I’ll make houses,” Ludger said.

Arslan stared. “Ludger—”

Ludger finally looked at his father, expression flat.

“I’m not building a free city,” he said. “They’ll pay. With work. With time. With contribution. Shelters now, debt later. Clear rules.”

He turned back to Yvar.

“And make sure we flag anything odd,” Ludger added. “People who won’t register. People who won’t work. People who ask too many questions about patrol routes or stores. Low chance isn’t zero.”

Yvar nodded once, already mentally drafting columns and categories. Ludger pushed himself up from the chair. His body complained, subtle, but real, and he ignored it like he’d ignore bad weather. He stepped toward the window, looking out at Lionfang’s walls, at the open land beyond, at the problem that had arrived like a tide. Then he spoke without turning back.

“Even amidst chaos,” Ludger said, voice calm, “there is opportunity.”

He glanced over his shoulder, eyes sharp again, no longer brooding, no longer annoyed.

Working.

“Let’s not waste it.”

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