Chapter 665

Ludger’s fingers tightened around his cup.

Torvares continued, and his tone grew more detailed, more instructional,the voice of someone explaining a threat he’d studied, not merely feared.

“Illusions don’t just hide faces,” he said. “They can fabricate

evidence

. They can alter memory perception at the edge, small nudges that make a guard swear he saw a different crest. They can create false crowds, false alarms, false emergencies. They can make an assassination look like an accident… or make an accident look like an assassination.”

He paused, letting that sink in.

“And because there’s no clean way to prove it happened,” Torvares added, “the paranoia spreads.”

Ludger’s gaze didn’t move. Torvares tapped the desk once, a quiet punctuation mark.

“The Empire learned long ago that if illusionists become common tools, trust becomes impossible,” he said. “And when trust becomes impossible, governance collapses. Armies fracture. Courts become theaters. Every rival house starts accusing the other of fabricated testimony and forged appearances.”

He leaned forward slightly now, voice tightening.

“Imagine a trial where every witness might be an illusion. Every document might have been swapped. Every confession might be a staged performance. The law stops being law. It becomes whoever can convince the most people that reality belongs to them.”

Ludger’s eyes narrowed further. He could see it. He hated how plausible it was.

Torvares’ expression darkened.

“So the Empire doesn’t recruit them like it recruits battle mages,” he said. “It doesn’t give them uniforms. It doesn’t put them in academies with public records.”

He hesitated, then said the part that explained the long pause.

“It hunts the ones it can’t control,” Torvares admitted quietly.

Ludger’s jaw tightened. Torvares didn’t look away.

“Or it buries them,” he said. “Quietly. With oaths and chains and handlers. The sort of ‘service’ that isn’t written down. The kind that ends with a knife in the dark if the illusionist ever decides they can walk away.”

The room felt colder. Not because of magic. Because of the way Torvares spoke like this wasn’t theory. Like this had happened. More than once.

He spread his hands slightly, not apologetic, just honest.

“That’s why your question made me frown,” he said. “Because if you start looking for an illusionist, you don’t just attract the help.”

His eyes locked onto Ludger.

“You attract the people who make sure illusionists don’t exist.”

Ludger didn’t flinch at the warning. He’d expected it. Politics always turned

useful

into

suspicious

the moment it smelled like secrecy.

“I’m not asking to alter memories,” Ludger said, voice flat. “I don’t want that. I don’t need that.”

He leaned forward slightly, palms resting on his knees like he was stating a simple engineering requirement.

“The simplest spells to alter appearance would do the work,” he continued. “Face. Hair. Build. Presence. Enough that most people won’t recognize her even if they’re looking for her.”

His eyes narrowed.

“They should exist in the Empire,” he said. “Or if not here, abroad.”

Torvares’ shoulders rose and fell in a slow sigh, the kind that carried an entire file cabinet of unpleasant knowledge.

“Such arts are easier found in Argarthia,” Torvares said.

Ludger’s expression didn’t change, but his attention sharpened. Argarthia, far. Old. The kind of place where exotic magic didn’t get burned out of the world by cautious empires.

Torvares held up a hand, preempting the obvious conclusion.

“Still,” he added, “there are specialists there to counter that kind of magic as well.”

He looked at Ludger meaningfully.

“In Argarthia, if you rely on illusion, you also assume someone will try to peel it off you.”

Ludger nodded once. That wasn’t surprising. Anything valuable developed predators. Torvares’ gaze stayed steady.

“And I would assume,” he said carefully, “that you wouldn’t go that far away at such times.”

The refugee wave. The empire sniffing around. The labyrinth. The regent’s appetite for leverage. Leaving now would be like walking away from a fire because you wanted better tools to put it out.

Ludger nodded again, more firmly.

“I won’t.”

Torvares’ fingers drummed once on the desk, then stopped—decision made.

“There is someone in the Empire,” Torvares said.

Ludger’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”

Torvares didn’t give the name immediately. He measured his next words like a man handling glass.

“Someone you could learn from,” Torvares continued. “Or at least… someone who can teach you the basics. Appearance, masking, the kind of surface alteration you want.”

Ludger held still, waiting. Torvares’ voice hardened slightly.

“But,” he said, “if rumor spreads about what you’re trying to learn…”

He paused, letting the consequences form before he named them.

“…people won’t assume you’re doing it for a frightened girl.”

His gaze pinned Ludger.

“They will doubt you. More.” His mouth tightened. “And the Lionsguard.”

A quiet, ugly truth. Because in the Empire, illusion didn’t mean “safety.” It meant

lies

. It meant

plots

. It meant

someone trying to change reality without permission

. Torvares leaned back a fraction, expression grim.

“So if you pursue this,” he said, “you do it quietly. With discipline. With no loose tongues.”

His eyes flicked toward the door, toward the estate beyond, toward a world full of ears.

“Because the spell you’re asking for is simple,” Torvares finished. “But the suspicion it creates… isn’t.”

Ludger didn’t hesitate.

He’d listened. He’d weighed it. He’d acknowledged the risk. Then he discarded the part he didn’t care about.

“I don’t care about suspicion,” Ludger said evenly. “And I don’t care about the teacher.”

Torvares’ eyes narrowed a fraction, a flicker of irritation and reluctant respect mixing together. Ludger continued, voice calm, almost cold.

“As long as I can learn the art.”

For a moment, Torvares simply stared at him, as if confirming that the boy across his desk really was that stubborn, really was that willing to walk into a political minefield with his eyes open because the outcome mattered more than the cost.

Then Torvares exhaled, a low sound that might’ve been amusement if it wasn’t so tired.

“Of course you don’t mind,” he said.

It wasn’t an insult. It was an observation. A man recognizing the shape of a weapon and accepting that it would cut whoever it needed to cut. Torvares set his cup down with a quiet click.

“I’ll contact some people,” he said. “I’ll make the negotiations.”

Ludger nodded once.

No gratitude. No flattery. Just acceptance, as if this was another supply line being arranged, another wall being reinforced.

Torvares’ gaze stayed on him for a heartbeat longer.

“You understand,” Torvares said, voice measured, “that this will require discretion.”

“I understand,” Ludger replied.

Torvares’ fingers tapped the desk once, then stopped, decision sealed.

Ludger’s eyes drifted to the bottle. There wasn’t much left. A thin layer of wine clinging to the glass, dark and shimmering.

He picked up his stone cup again.

“Then let’s finish the wine,” he said, tone dry.

Torvares’ eyebrow lifted. Ludger added, as if it were the most obvious logic in the world, “Can’t let Aronia’s work go to waste.”

For the first time in that office, Torvares smiled properly, small, restrained, but real.

“Agreed,” he said.

And the tension eased just enough for the last pour to feel less like negotiation… and more like the beginning of something that might actually hold.

Later that day, Viola returned home from training outside.

Her shoulders ached in the good way. Her wrists felt raw from hours of swinging steel wrong on purpose until it started becoming right. She’d spent the afternoon trying to mimic the ant king’s technique overlapping angles, layered rhythm, the illusion of too many attacks at once.

It still looked stupid sometimes. She knew that. But it was getting less stupid. That was progress.

She walked through the estate with a satisfied weight in her limbs, hair damp with sweat, cheeks flushed from exertion. A direwolf cub lounged in her arms like it owned her, heavy, warm, and entirely too comfortable being carried like a pampered noble.

Viola scratched behind its ear as she headed toward her grandfather’s office. It was more of a habit more than duty. She liked to announce herself when she returned from training, mostly because it annoyed the servants and amused her grandfather.

Halfway down the hall, her expression shifted. She frowned. There was a smell in the air, faint, but unmistakable. Wine.

Not the usual expensive perfume of old vintages stored in cellars. This was cleaner. Sharper. A subtle, bright edge that made her mouth almost water without permission.

And then she heard it. A soft sniffing sound behind the office door. Viola froze for half a beat, eyebrows knitting together. Her grandfather cried a bit when he was drunk.

Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just… a little. Like the drink loosened something he normally kept tied down with iron discipline.

It wasn’t often. In fact, she could count the times on one hand. Which meant if it was happening now, something had pressed a nerve deep enough that even Torvares couldn’t ignore it.

Viola’s grip tightened slightly on the cub. It blinked at her, unimpressed. She inhaled once, then pushed the door open. The office was dimmer than the hallway, the late afternoon sun cutting in through the windows in warm bars. Lord Torvares sat behind his desk, a half-empty bottle on the wood, two cups beside it, oddly shaped.

His gaze snapped up when the door opened. For a heartbeat he looked… caught.

Viola stepped in and announced, bright and simple, “I’m back.”

Torvares didn’t answer immediately. He lifted a hand and rubbed at his eyes like a bit of dust had fallen into them. A slow, controlled movement.

Too controlled. Viola’s eyes narrowed. She held the direwolf cub closer and tilted her head.

“Wine?” she asked, letting the question carry all the suspicion it deserved.

Torvares’ mouth twitched faintly.

“Ludger brought it,” he said.

Viola paused.

“Brought it?” she repeated, because that didn’t fit her mental map of the world.

Torvares nodded once, gaze dropping briefly to the bottle.

“He came to talk,” Torvares added. “About the future.”

The cub in Viola’s arms yawned, completely unconcerned with politics. Viola took one more step into the room, scanning her grandfather’s face like she was looking for bruises that weren’t supposed to be there. And then she asked the real question, sharper and quieter.

“Are you two… fine now?”

Torvares looked at her for a long moment. Then he nodded.

“Yes,” he said.

Something in Viola’s chest unclenched so fast it almost hurt. She let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding and slumped slightly, relief washing over her in a warm wave.

“Good,” she muttered.

Then, because Viola’s brain never stopped, another thought snapped into place.

Her grandfather wouldn’t get drunk off half a bottle of wine. Not Torvares. He was too practiced. Too controlled. Too used to swallowing poison with a smile. So if he’d sniffed and wiped his eyes… It wasn’t the alcohol.

Something else had made him cry a bit. Something heavier.

Viola stared at him, the curiosity rising like a blade, but she didn’t swing it.Not now. Not when the answer might hurt. She adjusted the cub in her arms, forcing her voice back into its usual bold tone.

“So,” she said, trying for casual and landing somewhere near “aggressively normal,” “what did you say to each other?”

Torvares’ expression softened, faint and tired.

“Enough,” he replied.

Viola huffed, unsatisfied, but she didn’t pry further.

Because sometimes, even in a house built on secrets and strategy, the strongest thing you could do was let a wound breathe in peace.

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