Chapter 668

Shera’s eyebrows lifted slightly at the word, as if she hadn’t expected welcome from the boy who always looked like he was deciding whether you were a threat.

Ludger glanced around, then nodded toward the rough streets and new buildings of the northerners’ township, the half-finished structures, the smoke, the steady movement.

“Lionfang is a bit further south,” he said, tone dry. “But it looks like you’re already surprised enough with this place.”

Shera’s mouth twitched, almost a smile. She didn’t deny it.

“Yes,” she said, and her eyes drifted past Ludger’s shoulder, focusing on something in the distance.

Ludger followed her gaze.

Freyra stood out immediately, tall even among northerners, moving with that aggressive confidence that made every gesture look like a challenge. She was in the middle of an open training patch with one of the direwolves.

Not just

commanding

it. Working with it.

Her hand moved in a precise signal. Her stance shifted. Her breathing changed. And the direwolf responded like it understood not only the motion, but the

intent

behind it.

The creature circled, stopped, dropped low, then sprang, fast and clean, before snapping back to Freyra’s side with ears forward, waiting for the next cue.

There was no struggle in it. No dominance contest. Just communication. Shera watched that for a long second, expression unreadable, then she said quietly, as if speaking to herself more than anyone else:

“She understands it.”

Not “controls.” Not “owns.”

Understands.

Ludger didn’t respond. He let that statement stand, because it was true, and because it was a kind of praise Freyra would pretend not to care about while secretly living off it for a week.

Beside Shera, Valk made a low grunt. Ludger turned his head. The monk’s gaze wasn’t on Freyra.

It was on another patch of ground where a cluster of northerners were training in a tight circle, faces set in concentration. Their bodies were tense, but not wild. Their breaths were controlled. Their eyes stayed focused inward, not outward.

Rage Flow. But restrained.

Not the crude berserker surge that turned stamina into ash and bones into regret. This was the refined version, measured ignition, controlled output, less strain, less waste. The kind of thing Valk had once hammered into Ludger with silent drills and painful correction.

Ludger watched one warrior flare, then settle, then flare again with a smoother rhythm, like a bellows that didn’t tear itself apart every time it breathed.

Valk grunted again, and this time it carried something else.

Approval. Maybe even a hint of surprise. Because those were Valk’s techniques. Shera’s too.

And now they were spreading through the camp like a contagion, one that made people stronger without making them stupider.

Ludger’s mouth quirked slightly.

He looked at them both and said, simply, “You see.”

Shera’s eyes flicked back to him. Valk’s expression remained calm, but his attention sharpened. Ludger leaned just a fraction into the moment, the dry humor showing its teeth.

“I told you,” he said, “you would see some interesting things in a couple of months here.”

For the first time since arriving, Shera’s lips curved into an actual smile, small, sharp, and dangerous.

Valk’s grunt this time sounded almost like a laugh.

And Ludger, standing in the middle of the northerners’ township with two of his former teachers watching the results of their own lessons ripple outward… couldn’t help but feel that same quiet, practical satisfaction he always did.

He’d taken what he’d learned. And he’d built something with it. Ludger stood there for a moment, watching their eyes move.

He considered, briefly, doing the polite thing.

A tour. An introduction. A neat little presentation that showed the “best parts” in the right order, with the right people, with the right words. The kind of curated walk nobles loved because it made everything feel controlled.

He could do it.

He just hated it. And before he even decided, Valk and Shera decided for him.

Shera shifted her weight, adjusted the strap on her belt, and started walking, straight toward the training patch where Freyra was working the direwolf like it was a conversation instead of a command.

No pause. No request for permission. Just a smooth, predatory confidence, tamer curiosity pulling her forward.

Valk went the other direction at the same time, steps quiet and deliberate, angling toward the circle where the northerners were practicing focus drills and regulating their Rage Flow. He moved like a monk moving through a temple, slow, respectful, and utterly uninterested in anyone’s social expectations.

They didn’t look back at Ludger. They didn’t ask to be shown anything. They didn’t wait for him to “host.” They just… started inspecting the camp the way people inspected truth: by touching it with their own hands and seeing if it held.

Ludger blinked once. Then he understood. They didn’t want a presentation. They wanted to check things for themselves. No suspicious covers. No careful phrasing. No Lionsguard-polished version of reality. Just the raw shape of what the northerners and Lionsguard were building together, how people moved, how they trained, how they spoke, what they hid and what they didn’t.

That was… fair. Actually, it was smart. If Valk and Shera were here, they weren’t tourists. They were judges. Quiet ones. The kind that didn’t ask questions until they already knew the answers.

Ludger exhaled softly through his nose and let them go. Fine by him. He wasn’t the type to do that kind of work anyway. He wasn’t a greeter. He wasn’t a guide. He was a builder.

Ludger left the northerners’ township with a familiar, low irritation settling in his ribs.

Not at Valk and Shera. That was fine. Useful, even. They’d see what they wanted to see, and if they approved, the northerners would listen harder. If they didn’t… better to know now than later.

No, the irritation was at the universe itself. Because the moment he crossed back toward Lionsguard proper, toward the streets where guild colors and work crews mixed like blood and mortar, he saw it.

Another knot of people. This time near the opposite gate.

A gathering shaped wrong. Too still. Too focused. The kind of crowd that wasn’t watching a fight or a merchant’s trick. The kind that watched authority arrive and waited to see who would flinch first.

Ludger stopped for half a second. Then sighed. Not quietly. An exhale full of tired annoyance.

“Of course,” he muttered, rubbing at his forehead with two fingers. “Why would I get a single moment of peace?”

He started walking again, pace steady but faster, weaving through the street as heads turned. A few guild members spotted him and straightened, instinctively making space. Some of the newer refugees did the same, even if they didn’t understand why yet. They’d just learned the rule: when the green scarf moved with purpose, something important was happening.

As he neared the gate, the crowd thickened.

The sound came into focus, murmurs, cautious questions, a few sharp voices trying to keep order. The guards weren’t panicking, but they were tense, hands too close to weapons, eyes tracking the visitors.

Then Ludger saw the uniforms. Blue and silver. Clean-cut lines, disciplined fit, not a stitch out of place. The kind of uniform that didn’t belong to a border town that still smelled faintly like wet stone and fresh mortar.

On their shoulders and banners was the symbol that mattered: A talon claw. A hooked, stylized mark that looked like it belonged on a predator’s throat.

The Silver Talon Order.

Ludger’s eyes narrowed. His face didn’t change much, but the air around him did, like the temperature had dropped a few degrees. Because uniforms like that didn’t show up at a gate unless someone had sent them.

And if someone had sent them, it meant Lionfang had been noticed again. Which meant peace, real peace, had been a lie from the start.

By the time Ludger reached the gate, the crowd had formed a loose ring, wide enough to avoid looking like a riot, tight enough to make it clear everyone wanted to hear what was said.

Ludger didn’t like crowds.

Crowds remembered the wrong details, repeated the wrong sentences, and turned private problems into public weapons.

He slid through the onlookers without shoving anyone, but people parted anyway. Some did it out of respect. Some did it because his expression was blank in the specific way that meant

don’t make me solve this with force.

Inside the ring stood the Silver Talon Order.

Blue and silver uniforms, polished gear, clean boots that didn’t belong on frontier mud. Their banner was held high, silver talon claw on a field of blue, sharp and arrogant, like the symbol itself expected the world to step aside.

At first glance, it looked like a disciplined delegation.

At second glance, it looked like a message.

Ludger’s gaze moved across the line of soldiers, picking out ranks by posture and spacing. He found the center almost immediately, two figures positioned just a half step ahead of the rest, the kind of placement that said “leaders” without needing to announce it.

One of them wasn’t suspicious at all. Varik.

He looked the same as always, hard-eyed, worn at the edges, the kind of man who could stand in the middle of a battlefield and make decisions without shaking. His uniform fit him like a habit, not a costume. He held himself like someone who’d already buried too many men to care about being impressive.

Varik being here made sense. He was the Guildmaster of the Silver Talon Order. If the order showed up, he’d either be present or it meant something had gone wrong enough that even he couldn’t control it. So Varik was expected.

The other man… The other man was the problem. Rufas Dalmoren.

Ludger recognized him because when you dealt with nobles, you learned to recognize the ones who could ruin you by sneezing in the wrong direction. Still, he never looked like a problem until now.

Rufas stood with the effortless composure of someone raised to believe the world arranged itself around his decisions. Not flashy, not loud. Worse,

controlled

. The kind of control that wasn’t discipline, but entitlement refined into elegance.

He wore the imperial guard colors, but it was obvious the uniform wasn’t his identity. It was something he’d put on for this visit, like a blade you carried when you wanted people to remember you could cut.

His hair was neatly kept, his gaze sharp and appraising, and his expression sat at that perfect noble middle ground: polite enough to be civil, cold enough to be dangerous.

Future head of House Dalmoren. One of the families closest to the imperial family.

And, most telling of all, someone who had taken his time coming to Lionfang for the first time.

That delay wasn’t disinterest. It was calculation. Which meant him showing up now was not a casual visit. It was a decision made after weighing options.

Not good news.

Ludger’s eyes flicked from Varik to Rufas and back again, and in that brief exchange he read enough to confirm one thing: They could not talk here. Not with this many ears.

Not with refugees eager for any rumor. Not with northerners who didn’t trust imperial banners. Not with Lionsguard recruits who would repeat everything in the mess hall by dinner. And definitely not with a noble tied this close to the imperial family standing under a symbol that screamed

official interest

.

Ludger stepped forward until he was close enough that the guards at the gate stiffened, unsure whether to salute him, stop him, or pretend they hadn’t been holding their breath.

He didn’t acknowledge the crowd.

He looked directly at Varik first, because Varik would understand bluntness. Then he looked at Rufas, because Rufas needed to understand that Lionfang didn’t kneel automatically. Ludger spoke in a calm, even tone that carried just far enough for the people nearest to hear, but not far enough to feed the whole ring.

“This isn’t a conversation for the open,” Ludger said.

He turned slightly, angling his body toward the inner streets.

“Follow me.”

Varik’s eyes narrowed, then he gave a short nod, no offense taken, because Varik was a soldier before he was a guildmaster.

Rufas paused for half a heartbeat, then, slowly, he smiled. Not warmly. Politely. The kind of smile nobles used when they were willing to play along… for now.

“As you wish,” Rufas said.

Ludger didn’t respond. He simply turned and walked, trusting that if they didn’t follow, they’d reveal their intentions right there. Behind him, he heard boots move.

The Silver Talon Order fell in.

And the crowd, denied its entertainment, buzzed with frustrated curiosity as Ludger led the two leaders away, toward privacy, toward control, and toward whatever trouble had finally decided Lionfang was worth visiting.

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