Ludger looked at him.
Then he said, flat as ever, “I’m not old enough to drink.”
The table went quiet for a second. Arslan blinked. Maris stared at him. Elira looked like she was trying very hard not to laugh too early.
Ludger, meanwhile, turned his head toward the tavern keeper and said, “Orange juice.”
That made everyone around him frown. Not dramatically. Just enough to show collective disapproval at how deeply uncooperative that answer felt in the moment. Maris was the first to voice it.
“You really are uptight for Arslan’s son.”
Ludger shrugged.
“Someone has to worry about the reputation of the leadership of Lionsguard.”
That made Elira snort into her drink. Arslan looked offended in the way only a man being accurately criticized could look offended.
“My reputation is fine.”
Ludger did not even look at him.
“It is surviving.”
Maris laughed at that one. Actually laughed. A short, sharp sound, but genuine.
Arslan clicked his tongue and muttered something about being slandered at his own celebration, while the tavern keeper returned with a bottle that was probably expensive enough to hurt and, a moment later, a glass of orange juice for Ludger.
The contrast on the table was absurd. Dark, strong alcohol for the adults. Orange juice for the vice guildmaster who had killed a guardian the night before and was now somehow the most responsible person present.
Ludger accepted the glass without shame. Maris shook her head once, still faintly amused.
“Elira,” she said, “look carefully. This is what happens when competence strangles youth.”
Elira leaned her chin on one hand and looked at Ludger with obvious interest.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s a little disappointing.”
“It is not,” Arslan said.
“It definitely is,” Elira replied.
Ludger drank his orange juice and decided not to involve himself in that part of the conversation. For once, the alliance had been secured, the important terms were in place, and no one was currently trying to kill anyone. That was already enough of a success.
They kept drinking until late into the night.
At first, Maris had looked just as tight and controlled as ever, seated straight-backed with the kind of expression that suggested alcohol was a tool rather than a mood. She drank like she did everything else at the beginning, deliberately, without wasted motion, like she was determined not to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her loosen up.
Then the second drink became the third. And after that, she did not really stop. Arslan, meanwhile, needed even less encouragement.
The moment he realized Maris was willing to drink properly, something bright and deeply irresponsible woke up inside him. He leaned into the old rhythm of it with almost offensive enthusiasm, laughing louder, calling for more bottles, and insisting on paying for rounds not just for their table, but for half the tavern whenever the mood struck him.
Which was often. Ludger sat there with his orange juice and made a quiet mental note to discount all of that from Arslan’s salary later for using guild funds inappropriately. His father, of course, had absolutely no idea that this accounting judgment had already been passed.
That was for the best.
As the night dragged on, the tavern grew hotter, louder, and much more relaxed around their table. People nearby picked up quickly that the old guildmaster-looking woman and the broad-shouldered man with too much confidence clearly had history. That alone made them interesting. The fact that they were both drinking like people trying to outlast memories only made the audience better.
Maris and Arslan started telling stories. Not all at once.
At first, it was just fragments. A place name. An old contract. Someone they both used to know. But once the drink softened the sharpest edges, the stories came more easily, one after another, dragged up from years Ludger had never seen and, after hearing some of them, would have greatly preferred remained buried.
Apparently his father had been even more of a disaster than he had assumed.
Not in battle. That part was obvious enough. In every other way.
There were stories involving tavern windows, deeply unnecessary duels, stolen horses that had technically been borrowed, a noblewoman’s balcony that should never have been climbed, and at least two separate incidents where Arslan had apparently mistaken a terrible idea for a charming one and survived only because other people around him had been more competent than he deserved.
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Ludger listened to some of it with the slow, growing regret of a son learning too much. There were moments when he genuinely wanted to erase parts of the conversation from his memory. Not because the stories lacked entertainment value.
Because they involved his father’s indiscretions in far too much detail. Elira lasted longer than Ludger expected before joining them. At first she slowed her drinking, maybe out of self-preservation, maybe because she still had enough sense left to realize someone needed to remain at least partially functional at the table. But eventually the tide of the night pulled her in too. Not as recklessly as Arslan. Not with Maris’ hard, stubborn intensity either. But enough that her voice softened, her posture loosened, and the brightness in her eyes shifted into something more openly amused.
Only Ludger remained sober. Entirely sober. Someone had to.
The negotiations were already done, yes, but that did not mean the night had become safe. If anything, it had become more dangerous in a completely different way. Contracts could always be fixed tomorrow. The consequences of drunken stupidity were usually more immediate. So Ludger stayed where he was, orange juice in hand, watching the slow collapse of adult dignity around him and making sure nothing truly disastrous happened.
Eventually, Elira turned her head toward him, studying him with the kind of long, softened focus people used when the drink had started smoothing over their internal filters.
“It’s a pity,” she said.
Ludger looked at her.
“That you’re so boring.”
He raised an eyebrow. Elira smiled lazily at him from where she sat propped against the table.
“You’d be more popular if you were more free-spirited.”
Ludger took another sip of orange juice before answering.
“I can live with being boring.”
That seemed to amuse her.
“I don’t care about being popular,” he continued. “Hopefully the line of womanizers in the family ends with my father.”
That made Elira snort into her drink. Ludger, however, was not joking enough to stop there.
“I also don’t want to make my mother become like she was before the twins were born.”
Elira blinked at him. He spoke with the same flat seriousness that made everything sound more real.
“Overprotective,” he said, “and more frightening than a labyrinth guardian when she had a knife in her hand.”
That got a louder laugh out of Elira than anything else had for a while.
Then, still smiling a little, she let her head rest on the table with a soft thunk and muttered, “So what they say is true.”
Ludger glanced at her.
She turned her face slightly, one eye half-open, and added, “Never meet your heroes.”
Ludger drank his orange juice and did not bother responding. That was probably for the best.
Because around them, Arslan was in the middle of telling some terrible version of an old story that Maris kept interrupting to correct, both of them drunk enough that accuracy had become optional and volume had become mandatory.
And Ludger, sitting in the middle of it all sober, tired, and deeply resigned, decided that boring was still infinitely better than whatever this was.
The next day, Ludger and Arslan began preparing to leave.
Ludger had already gathered his notes, sorted the more useful ones, and copied the parts of the partnership terms that actually mattered into a cleaner set of papers for Maris to sign. Strictly speaking, it was the proper thing to do. Agreements that involved guilds, resources, logistics, and long-term profit should exist on paper, especially when one side intended to build actual deployment structures around them.
That said, he had a fairly good feeling about Maris. Not a soft feeling. Not trust in the childish sense. Just the practical sort. She was sharp, proud, and difficult, but she did not feel slippery. If she gave her word, Ludger doubted she would cheapen herself by wriggling out of it through nonsense later. So the documents were probably not necessary.
Still, probably was not the same as certainly. So he brought them anyway.
Beside him, Arslan looked like someone had taken his head, stuffed it inside a bronze bell, and then spent several hours hitting every side with a hammer.
His expression was grim in a deeply personal way. His eyes were narrowed against the morning light. Every time a nearby cart rolled over a stone too loudly or someone raised their voice in passing, he groaned like a wounded veteran who had survived a battlefield only to be finished off by existence itself.
Ludger felt no sympathy. This was self-inflicted. When they reached the front of Maris’ guild, both Maris and Elira were already there to see them off.
Maris stood with her usual composed posture, looking entirely too functional for someone who had also spent a good part of the night drinking. Elira looked more honestly tired, though still awake enough to watch everything with mild curiosity. When Ludger and Arslan climbed onto the runic carriage, the two of them raised a hand once in farewell.
Ludger gave them a nod. Arslan managed a weak, vaguely tragic wave of his arm. Then, before long, they departed for home.
The runic carriage rolled out from the city and onto the road with its usual smooth pull, the enchantments beneath it humming low and steady. The motion should have made Arslan worse. Somehow, after the first miserable stretch, it began doing the opposite. Either the rhythm settled his battered skull or the distance from last night’s tavern worked some kind of divine mercy, because little by little the pain eased off his face.
His shoulders loosened. The deep crease between his brows softened. And by the time the town had long since fallen behind them, his spirits had begun rising again in that irritatingly resilient way he had.
Eventually, Arslan relaxed enough to start talking about nothing in particular, which was usually the first sign that he had returned to normal. A comment about the road. Something about the weather. A complaint about how taverns in smaller cities always either oversalted their meat or undersalted it with no middle ground.
Ludger let it pass by in the background.
Then Arslan turned his head slightly and said, far too casually, “Elira was cute, right, Ludger?”
Ludger looked at him. Arslan, encouraged by the lack of immediate violence, continued.
“Not as uptight as her mother either.”
Ludger nodded once.
“I’ll tell Mom that.”
Arslan rolled his eyes so hard it was a miracle his head did not start hurting again.
“Objectively speaking.”
Ludger looked forward again.
“I’ll add that to the report,” he said. “I’m sure Mom will understand it.”
That got a long sigh out of Arslan.
“You are ruthless, Luds.”
Ludger did not answer. Arslan gave it another few seconds before trying again, because of course he did.
“Anyway,” he said, “wasn’t she your type?”
That made Ludger glance at him once more. Arslan was serious enough to be annoying.
Then his father added, “What is your type anyway?”