Chapter 660

The name hit the room like a stone dropped into still water. Ludger’s spine stiffened. Elaine didn’t stop.

“The fact that Torvares hid a member of the imperial family in the Lionsguard,” she said, voice quiet but absolute, “even if she’s an illegitimate child.”

The twins giggled again. A cub sneezed. The domestic scene continued like it didn’t understand what kind of sentence had just been spoken.

Ludger didn’t move. His face went still in a way it rarely did outside of battle. No sarcasm. No deflection. No dry humor to cut the tension. Just seriousness, sharp enough to draw blood.

“…Who told you?” he asked, and his voice was flat.

Not angry. Worse. Careful. Controlled. Dangerous.

Elaine didn’t flinch at the edge in Ludger’s voice.

She’d raised him. She’d watched him come home with blood under his nails and lies in his mouth because it was easier than explaining. That kind of tone didn’t scare her. It just told her she’d hit something real.

She folded her hands on the table, calm as a verdict.

“I talked with Viola,” she said. “And Luna.”

Ludger’s eyes narrowed a fraction.

“A few weeks ago,” Elaine continued, as if she were discussing recipes instead of imperial landmines. “The topic came up. I asked questions.”

Ludger stared at her, and for a moment his expression looked eerily like Arslan’s battlefield stillness, waiting for the next strike.

“And after some serious interrogation,” Elaine added, “Luna spilled the beans.”

Ludger blinked once.

“Luna?” he repeated, like the name didn’t fit the outcome.

Elaine’s mouth twitched.

“She’s loyal,” Elaine said. “Not stupid. Loyalty gets tired when you make it carry secrets for other people.”

Ludger’s gaze sharpened further, and he asked the only question that mattered to him right then.

“What was the

content

of the interrogation?”

Elaine stared at him for a long, measured moment.

Then she said, evenly, “Luna was just tired of keeping secrets from Viola.”

She lifted a hand, palm down, pressing the conversation back into its track before he could latch onto the wrong detail.

“But that’s beyond the point.”

Ludger’s jaw tightened. Elaine’s eyes stayed on him, unblinking, and now there was something else in her tone, less mother, more strategist. Like she was laying out a board and making sure he understood which pieces had already been revealed.

“Now all the important parts involved know,” she said. “We know why you and Torvares at odds for months?”

The words settled heavy. Ludger’s fingers curled slightly against the chair arm. He didn’t like that.

He didn’t like

anyone

being “involved” when the subject was imperial blood and secret custody and the kind of politics that didn’t end with bruises, it ended with families erased. He exhaled slowly through his nose, forcing his shoulders to stay down.

“How much,” he asked quietly, “does Viola know?”

Elaine’s gaze didn’t soften.

“Enough,” she said. “And enough is dangerous, Ludger.”

The direwolf cubs bumped into each other and tumbled, blissfully ignorant. Ludger’s eyes flicked to the twins for a heartbeat, tiny hands on fur, laughing like the world was simple.

Then his attention snapped back to Elaine, and the calm in his face was the calm of someone realizing the board had shifted while he was busy building walls.

Her voice dropped, precise.

“An imperial problem.”

Elaine leaned back in her chair, the hard line in her posture easing just enough to remind Ludger she was still

Elaine

, not a commander, not a noble, not an imperial interrogator.

A mother. A dangerous one.

“I’m not going to tell you to be friends with her,” Elaine said, matter-of-fact. “Not with someone who was trained and told to avoid getting attention.”

Her eyes flicked over him, green scarf, too-still gaze, the kind of presence that pulled focus even when he tried to disappear.

“And you,” she continued, tone dry, “get attention everywhere you go.”

Ludger’s mouth tightened, ready to respond, but she wasn’t done.

“Mainly thanks to my good genes that you inherited from me,” Elaine added, with the casual cruelty of a woman who knew exactly how to land a joke like a slap, “but that is also beyond the point.”

Ludger

wanted

to sigh. He felt it rising, an entire month’s worth of exhaustion trying to leave his lungs all at once. But he didn’t. Sighing in front of Elaine was like showing blood in front of a shark. It invited follow-up. So he just stared at her, expression flat, waiting.

At least she wasn’t being too serious about it. At least she was still capable of… humor. That thought lasted exactly three breaths.

Elaine’s eyes shifted, subtle, but Ludger caught it. The humor drained out of her face like water pulled from a cup. Her gaze grew distant for a heartbeat, then snapped back into focus with a sharpness that made the room feel smaller.

Then she dropped the bombshell.

“Ludger,” she said quietly, “do you know why I never talk about my parents?”

The twins giggled on the floor. A direwolf cub rolled onto its back and kicked its paws in the air like it was fighting invisible enemies. The normal life in the room continued like nothing had changed. But Ludger felt something cold settle in his stomach.

He hadn’t expected that question. Not here. Not now. He held Elaine’s gaze, searching her face for the angle, for the reason. His mind offered the obvious answer first:

because it hurt.

Because parents were either dead or worse. Because the past was heavy. He sat in silence for a brief moment, and then chose his words carefully.

“I…” Ludger began, then paused.

He didn’t like guessing when the subject was his mother’s history. That was how you got cut without realizing you’d stepped too close.

Still, she’d asked. So he answered honestly.

“I assumed it was a difficult topic,” Ludger said.

Elaine nodded once, slow.

Not agreement. Confirmation.

“Yes,” she said softly. “It is.”

She held his eyes, and the air in the room went from tense to brittle.

“And it’s time you understand why.”

Elaine didn’t speak right away.

She watched the twins for a moment, Elle tugging gently at a direwolf cub’s tail until it sneezed again, Arash laughing like the world couldn’t possibly contain tragedy. Elaine’s gaze softened in a way Ludger rarely saw, then hardened again as she turned back to him.

“When I was ten,” she said, voice steady, “I lost my parents.”

Ludger’s fingers tightened on the chair arm. Elaine continued, unblinking.

“They were traveling merchants. Always moving. Always chasing the next fair, the next route, the next coin that would keep us fed.”

She paused once, just long enough for the weight of the next words to form.

“They were killed by bandits,” she said. “For their goods.”

Ludger flinched. It wasn’t dramatic. He didn’t jerk back like a child. But something in his face moved, some involuntary crack in the armor, because that sentence hit him like a strike he hadn’t braced for.

Ten. A cold, unwelcome image flashed through his mind: the road, the ambush, the screaming, the helplessness. The kind of thing that made a person stop believing the world had rules.

He swallowed. His throat felt too dry. Elaine didn’t stop.

“That’s not all,” she said quietly. “I never met my grandparents either.”

Ludger’s eyes stayed on her, sharp and tense.

“They died of plague,” Elaine said. “Years before. Before I was old enough to remember their faces. Before I was old enough to understand why people disappeared and never came back.”

The room felt different now. Not colder. Heavier. Elaine’s posture didn’t change, but something in her expression tightened, like she was holding a door shut with her own ribs.

Then she asked, very simply:

“Do you understand why I’m saying this?”

Ludger went silent. His mind worked fast, trying to connect the lines. Parents. Bandits. Plague. Loss layered on loss. The way she spoke about it, flat, controlled, like she’d hammered the pain into something usable.

He didn’t want to answer wrong. But Elaine wasn’t asking a riddle. She was asking if he could see the spine of the lesson. He stalled anyway, because he was Ludger, and stalling was safer than stepping into emotional ground without a map.

“…Something,” he said at last, voice cautious, “something, something about family and forgiveness?”

Elaine’s eyes narrowed, then eased, just slightly. She didn’t smile, but the edge of her mouth shifted like she was restraining one.

“I won’t scold you for that,” she said. “You got your playful side from me too.”

Ludger’s brow twitched, as if his body didn’t know whether that was an insult or permission. Elaine exhaled, slow, and her gaze softened a fraction more.

“But,” she added, tone sharpening again, “I would tone down a bit on the jokes.”

That landed like a warning dressed as mercy. Because if Elaine was toning down the jokes… It meant what came next wasn’t something he could laugh off. It meant she was about to tell him the real point, plain, brutal, and impossible to ignore.

Elaine rested her elbows on the table, fingers interlaced, eyes steady on Ludger like she was pinning him in place with nothing but expectation.

“Here’s the point,” she said. “You should forgive family most of the time.”

Ludger didn’t react. Not outwardly. But his jaw tightened a fraction, because “family” was a messy word in a world that used bloodlines like weapons. Elaine continued anyway.

“Unless they really backstab you,” she added, voice turning colder for a moment, the kind of cold that promised consequences. “And Torvares didn’t.”

Ludger’s eyes flickered. Elaine’s gaze held his.

“He makes mistakes like everyone else,” she said. “No one is perfect. But he would never antagonize you.”

Her voice softened slightly on the last part, not sentimental, just… certain.

“Not when you’re his granddaughter’s greatest supporter.”

The words hit with a strange weight. Less accusation, more reminder. Less politics, more personal. Ludger went quiet. A few seconds passed where he stared at the table like it contained an answer he could carve out of the grain.

Then, because silence was dangerous and he hated it, he did what he always did. He reached for humor like it was a shield.

He lifted his chin slightly, deadpan, and said, “I don’t make mistakes.”

Elaine didn’t blink. Ludger kept going, the words flowing with mock confidence like he was reading off a ridiculous title list.

“I’m perfect. Strong. Smart. Charismatic.” He paused, as if considering the last one with special care. “And humble beyond measure.”

For the first time since the conversation turned serious, the air loosened just a hair. The direwolf cubs yawned. The twins squealed. Life continued.

Elaine stared at him for a long moment. Then she sighed, slow and deep, like she’d been saving that breath for years.

“One of those,” she said, voice flat and merciless, “is mutually exclusive with all the others.”

Ludger’s mouth twitched. He didn’t fully smile. But he also didn’t argue. Because even he couldn’t win that one.

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