Paintings of Violette from the time she was a bright-eyed girl of ten, all the way up to her early twenties, just before her passing. Some were formal works, her wearing elegant dresses and subtle jewelry, posture perfect and regal. Others were candid, warm pieces: Violette in simpler clothes, laughing gently, arms open as a much younger Viola clung stubbornly to her legs. In one, Viola sat on her lap, proudly holding a wooden sword while Violette’s hands rested protectively around her. The artist had captured their expressions perfectly, Violette’s soft joy and Viola’s youthful determination.

  Ludger stood quietly, letting his gaze pass through each image like flipping pages of a life he’d never witnessed. The painters were undeniably skilled; the brushwork was detailed, expressive, almost too real. They had captured not just Violette’s features but her presence, light, maternal, strong in a way that didn’t need a blade.

  Torvares watched him but didn’t interrupt. Ludger’s eyes lingered on a piece near the far wall, Viola at maybe four or five years old, bundled in winter clothes, trying (and failing miserably) to help her mother carry a basket. Violette’s smile in that painting was one of those rare, gentle expressions that softened the entire room.

  He could see why Viola kept these. Why she had taken every portrait in the estate. Why Torvares thought a sculpture might mean something deeper than any forged blade.

  Ludger didn’t say anything for a long moment. He simply absorbed it, the quiet weight of love in every frame, the fragments of a woman who had shaped Viola more than any training, and the subtle loneliness that clung to the room despite its warmth.

  Eventually, he exhaled slowly.

  “They… were good painters,” he said quietly.

  Torvares nodded. “Yes. But even they could not capture her completely. Viola protects these portraits like treasures.”

  Ludger didn’t respond. He couldn’t. Not yet. He just kept looking at the mother Viola lost, and the sister he was trying, awkwardly, to understand.

  Ludger stood in the quiet of Viola’s room for another moment, his eyes drifting between the portraits, each one a frozen memory of the woman who shaped half of Viola’s fire and all of her heart. Eventually, he let out a slow breath and spoke, his voice quieter than usual.

  “…This would be a sculpture for your granddaughter,” he said, “but it’s also a sculpture of your daughter.”

  Torvares’s expression softened, not with sadness, but with the quiet acceptance of someone who had lived long enough to understand that remembering was both blessing and wound. “Yes,” he replied gently. “It would be.”

  Ludger hesitated, then asked, “Do you want anything specific? A pose? An age? Something like one of these paintings?”

  Torvares shook his head immediately. “No. I want you to make what you think is right.” His voice carried no weight of command, only trust. “If I told you what to make, the gift would be mine, not yours. The meaning would be limited by my ideas. And I want Viola to receive something from you, not something constrained by me.”

  Ludger frowned internally. That actually made things harder. If Torvares had given him a blueprint, a preference, a clear direction, Ludger would have followed it with military precision. But being given complete freedom, to decide the form, the mood, the symbolism—that was much more complicated.

  Still, he didn’t argue. He simply nodded once. “I’ll spend some time thinking about it.”

  Torvares placed a hand behind his back and looked around the room with the quiet sadness of a man revisiting ghosts. “Do not overthink it, Ludger. You do not need to try too hard. Viola will treasure anything that captures even a piece of her mother. Whether it’s simple or grand, small or elaborate… it will mean more to her than you realize.”

  Ludger glanced again at the painting of little Viola clinging to her mother’s legs while she watched her with a gentle smile.

  Yeah. He understood. Maybe more than Torvares knew.

  The next day, Ludger gathered Kaela, Maurien, Gaius, and Cor in one of the Lionsguard’s smaller briefing rooms. He shut the door behind them, locking out the noise of recruits training in the yard. The four specialists watched him expectantly, some curious, some suspicious, all of them smart enough to sense this wasn’t a normal assignment.

  Ludger leaned against the table, arms crossed. “You’ve all been invited to Viola’s birthday celebration,” he began. “But you won’t be going there just to eat and drink.”

  Kaela’s shoulders slumped dramatically. Maurien raised a brow. Gaius and Cor exchanged a glance.

  Ludger continued, tone steady. “Torvares wants the party secure. Quietly. No one at the estate, not even the staff, should suspect we’re on duty. You’ll blend in, stay in different areas, and watch for anything out of the ordinary. Suspicious mana use. Hidden weapons. People carrying more weight than their clothing should allow. Subtle movements between rooms. Anything.”

  He looked at each of them in turn. “You act normal. You behave like guests. But your senses stay active the entire time.”

  Cor grunted approvingly. Maurien nodded thoughtfully. Kaela made a face like someone had just told her she couldn’t punch the moon.

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  Gaius, however, frowned deeply. “Not even Arslan knows?” he asked. “Not even your father?”

  Ludger shook his head without hesitation. “No. Especially not Dad. This is also the birthday of his eldest daughter. He deserves to enjoy it without feeling responsible for shadow threats. He’s not a guildmaster at the party, he’s a father.”

  The room fell quiet for a moment. Gaius exhaled slowly, the lines of worry easing just a little. “Understood.”

  Kaela stretched, putting both hands behind her head in her usual lazy-cat posture. “I was hoping to enjoy some fine wine,” she admitted with a dramatic sigh. “Capital nobles always bring the good bottles. But… I guess this needs doing.”

  Maurien nudged her with an elbow. “You can drink after,” she said. “If anything goes wrong, we’ll deal with it quickly enough.”

  Kaela rolled her eyes but didn’t disagree.

  “And,” she added with a softer shrug, “Viola played with my little sister a few times when she visited our village. She really didn’t have to. So… I guess I owe her at least a half-favor.”

  Maurien smirked. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve said in months.”

  “Don’t get used to it,” Kaela huffed.

  Cor tapped his staff once on the stone floor, drawing attention back to Ludger. “We’ll cover the estate. Quietly. No panic. No incidents.”

  Ludger nodded. “Good. That’s the plan. We don’t hunt the troublemakers during the party. We catch them before they even blink.”

  Five guests. Five shadows. Five nets cast wide around the celebration. No one would expect the Lionsguard to be acting in plain sight. No one would suspect a thing. And Viola’s birthday, her one day without stress, would stay that way.

  When Ludger returned home that evening, he barely stepped through the doorway before spotting something that made his soul deflate with the force of a collapsing mine shaft. Elaine was sitting at the table, elbows propped up, her expression sharp and focused, the same expression she used when a captain was evaluating battlefield maps or interrogating suspicious merchants.

  Except she wasn’t holding maps. She was holding clothes. Fancy clothes.

  Silk and tailored jackets in dark greens, deep blacks, muted golds, formal wear clearly sized for someone around Ludger’s height and build. The kind nobles wore for evening gatherings, the kind that made him itch just by looking at the layers. He sighed on instinct.

  “Mom,” he said flatly, pointing at the pile of fabric like it had offended him personally, “I’m too old for you to pick my clothes.”

  Elaine didn’t even blink. “I’m not picking,” she said, her voice calm and ominously reasonable. “I’m making sure you have options. Good options. Ones that don’t make you look like you wandered out of the training yard and into a noble’s celebration by accident.”

  Ludger lifted an eyebrow. “Casual and comfortable are fine.”

  Elaine gave him The Look. The one that had once made a hardened mercenary confess to stealing pastries from the kitchen.

  “A lot of your friends will be there,” she said sternly. “They will be traveling from all over the territory. Some from the capital. Some from far villages. And Viola is the host. This is her day. You will show the proper respect, to her, and to the guests.”

  Ludger opened his mouth, closed it, then frowned deeper.

  “Friends,” he muttered. “We’ll see about that.”

  Elaine set aside a dark green jacket embroidered with silver thread, something that absolutely screamed a fancy noble event, and fixed her eyes on her son.

  “You will wear something appropriate,” she said, tone brooking no debate. “Something that fits. Something that doesn’t make people wonder if you snuck in through the servant entrance.”

  Ludger’s shoulders slumped every so slightly. Not defeated. Just accepting his fate. He eyed the clothes. Fancy fabrics. Annoyingly high-quality stitching. Enough layers to make him overheat during a snowstorm. And his mother was still sorting through them like she was assembling tactical gear. He exhaled.

  “Fine,” he muttered. “But I’m not wearing anything with feathers. Or frills. Or buttons made of polished bone.”

  Elaine’s lips twitched, not quite a smile, but close. “Of course. I know your tastes.” She held up one of the outfits against his shoulders for size.

  Ludger grumbled under his breath. As if he had time to worry about clothes with infiltration threats, rogue nobles, and sculpture decisions crushing his skull. But he didn’t fight her. Because Elaine was right. And because fighting her was impossible anyway.

  The next few days passed in a quiet storm of preparation. Ludger handled everything one task at a time with the same methodical precision he used in combat. First, he gathered the second squad and informed them they would be attending Viola’s birthday party, not as trainees, but as official Lionsguard representatives. Their reactions ranged from panic to excitement to Renn nearly fainting at the thought of seeing nobility up close. Ludger reminded them that if they misbehaved, Viola herself would discipline them, which immediately restored order. He also told the first squad to keep an eye on them just in case.

  After that, he met with Kharnek. The giant northerner chieftain listened to Ludger’s request with narrowed eyes, then nodded. Increasing the number of northerners patrolling Lionfang on the day of the celebration would tighten security around the labyrinth, the border routes, and the city’s outskirts. “If trouble comes,” Kharnek rumbled, “we will break it before it reaches your people.” Ludger thanked him, quietly, but sincerely. Kharnek’s warriors were blunt, loud, and terrifyingly effective deterrents.

  With those preparations complete, Ludger returned to Meronia, this time not as Ludger, Vice Guildmaster, but under disguise. A subtle shift of earth magic to dull his features, muddy his hair color, and reshape his silhouette was more than enough to keep eyes sliding past him. There was no point in being on guard duty if half the city knew he was lurking around; threats needed to believe he wasn’t watching. He made Meronia his hunting ground.

  During the day, he stayed underground, buried beneath the surface like a living sensor array. Using Seismic Sense, he mapped the flow of thousands of footsteps, the shifting weight of carriages, the pulse of mana signatures moving from street to street. And when night fell, he surfaced.

  The city slept under lantern glow and pale moonlight, unaware of the shadow moving across its rooftops. Ludger leapt from building to building, silent and controlled, using wind magic only when he needed to soften his landings. The wind was cold against his face, the tiles slick under his boots, the world stretched beneath him like a living map. Every sound, every mana flare, every heartbeat within twenty meters belonged to him the moment he focused.

  He scanned alleyways from above, observed inns and taverns for out-of-place energies, and watched unfamiliar travelers unload their goods. Ludger smirked as he sprinted across a tiled roof, the city flowing past beneath him.

  This was… fun. More than fun, it was exhilarating. Like a hunt where he set the rules and the prey didn’t even know a predator existed.

  No missions. No politics. Just him against the shadows of Meronia. And the shadows were losing.