For a few moments, Elira said nothing.
The runic lights slid across her face as the carriage moved, catching in her eyes while she thought. Ludger could almost see the second thoughts arrive in order. This is worse than I thought. This is more dangerous than I thought. This is the kind of thing people vanish over.
Good. That meant she was not stupid.
Eventually, she asked, “Why are you doing this?”
That was not asked lightly. Not as a challenge. Not as one more amused poke at his methods. A real question. Ludger was quiet for a second before answering. He gave her more details. Not all of them.
He explained that Gustav’s name had come from the rescued dryad girl. That the warehouse where her people had been kept was likely within Gustav’s territory. That Gustav’s family had ties to Armandis, and that they were now being executed under suspicious circumstances after years of alliance. That spies had already started failing near the Velis border, that information routes were being strangled, and that once Gustav and his family died, whatever they knew would likely vanish with them.
He did not mention everything. He did not tell them every thought he had had about the hidden path beyond the guardian chamber. He did not lay out every conclusion about how deep the rot might go. He did not explain every political instinct or every private judgment he had already made.
But he said enough. Enough for Elira to see the shape of it. The Empire was moving to erase something. Or someone. Or many things at once.
And whatever lay underneath it, the official story was almost certainly cleaner than the truth. By the time Ludger finished, Elira had gone very still.
Then she looked away for a moment and said, “So the Empire is being even more shady than you.”
Viola snorted softly at that. Luna remained quiet, but the corner of her mouth almost moved. Ludger, however, did not deny it. Because in this case, that was almost certainly true. He was stepping into darkness on purpose, yes. But he was doing it because something on the other side had already decided the truth needed to die quietly behind guarded walls.
And that was worse. Much worse.
Elira folded her arms and leaned back into the seat, no longer smiling now, but no longer baffled either. The line had been crossed. She understood the operation for what it was, and with understanding came a different sort of calm.
Not comfort. Just clarity.
Viola looked at Ludger for a moment longer before saying, “You really were going to do this alone.”
Ludger did not answer. He did not need to. The silence was answer enough.
Viola exhaled through her nose and looked away, irritated with him all over again, but this time with less childish heat and more hard recognition of just how much he had intended to carry without speaking.
Viola was the first to break the silence after that.
“What’s the plan?”
Ludger answered without hesitation.
“I’ll cause chaos in the capital.”
That made Elira blink once.
Ludger continued in the same calm voice, as if discussing route assignments instead of open provocation against the Empire’s center.
“I’ll hit several places that benefit our enemies and make enough noise that attention shifts outward.”
He did not bother dressing it up. Not diversion. Not pressure. Not strategic disruption. Chaos.
Deliberate, measured chaos aimed where it would hurt and where it would pull the eyes that mattered away from the prison at the right time.
“Meanwhile,” he said, looking between them, “you three will interrogate the prisoners.”
Viola frowned.
“Why not free them instead?”
That question hung in the carriage a little longer than the others had.
Because, on its face, it sounded reasonable enough. If they were going all the way there, if they were already risking infiltration, if the prisoners were about to die anyway, then why not pull them out and deny the Empire both their deaths and their silence?
Ludger answered immediately.
“Because they worked for the enemy.”
Viola’s brows drew together. Ludger went on.
“They’re being executed because they betrayed the Empire for some reason. Whatever that reason was, it does not make them ours.”
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His tone remained coldly practical.
“If my guess is right, they were selling information to other countries, or to groups tied to them. Men like that don’t suddenly become trustworthy just because they’re about to die.”
He looked forward again at the tunnel ahead.
“They know things. That’s why they matter. Not because they deserve rescue.”
Viola’s mouth tightened. She did not like that answer. Not because she thought he was entirely wrong, but because there was something ugly in how cleanly he said it, as if the line between usefulness and worth had already been drawn and there was no point pretending otherwise.
After a moment, she said, quieter now, “I heard their kids would be…”
She stopped. Did not finish the sentence. Did not need to. The carriage seemed to grow slightly quieter around that unfinished thought.
Luna’s expression dimmed. Elira looked away for a brief second. Even Viola, who had asked the question, seemed to regret having pushed herself into that line of thought now that it sat there fully formed in everyone’s head.
Ludger was not surprised. Because even on Earth, this was how things had been done in the past.
When people betrayed countries, kingdoms, or ruling houses, the punishment did not always stop neatly at the guilty party. Entire bloodlines were treated as risks. Entire families were erased under the logic that loyalty, ambition, and treachery were not individual stains but inheritances to be cut out at the root.
Ugly. Brutal. Common. This world was no different in that regard.
Maybe worse, because here power was not merely political or economic. Families could pass down influence, magic, titles, military obligations, sealed labyrinth duties, alliances, and grudges heavy enough to survive generations. Once a house was marked as rotten, the instinct to destroy all of it followed naturally in a system built on blood and continuity.
Ludger said, “It isn’t unusual.”
That did not make it better. It only made it true.
“In places like this,” he continued, “when a family is judged to have crossed too far, the punishment often extends to everyone tied to the name.”
Viola’s jaw clenched faintly.
“That doesn’t mean I approve of it,” Ludger added, before she could push back in the wrong direction. “It means I’m not naive enough to act shocked.”
That settled some of the immediate heat in her expression, though not much. Luna spoke then, voice low.
“So if we free them, we’re not rescuing innocents. We’re releasing a compromised house whose loyalties are already broken.”
“Yes,” Ludger said.
“And possibly people desperate enough to sell us, flee, or turn on each other the moment the walls are off them,” Luna finished.
“Yes.”
Elira, who had been quiet through that exchange, finally said, “So the children matter only if they know something useful.”
Ludger looked at her. That was another ugly truth. No one in the carriage liked it. Good. They shouldn’t. This was not the sort of work people should become too comfortable discussing.
Viola let out a slow breath and leaned back, arms folded tightly now.
“I hate this plan.”
Ludger nodded once.
“That’s reasonable.”
“But you still think it’s the right one.”
“Yes.”
Because freeing the family would turn one mission into three problems at once.
Escape. Containment. Trust. And trust was the worst of those.
A condemned noble family tied to Armandis, possible espionage, and dryad trafficking was not something you smuggled out of prison and then simply hoped would behave in a way convenient to you. If he cut them loose, he would be taking responsibility for every lie they told, every panic-driven choice they made, and every new hunter that would follow their trail.
No. Question them. Strip what knowledge remained. Leave the rest to the Empire’s own ugliness. Cold, perhaps. But cleaner. Viola looked at him again, this time with less argument and more grim understanding.
“So we go in, get answers, and leave them there.”
“Yes.”
“That’s vicious.”
Ludger’s expression did not change. Luna closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again.
Elira stared at him for a moment longer and said, “You really don’t romanticize anything, do you?”
“No.”
That answer came so fast that even Viola almost laughed. Almost.
The carriage kept rolling through the underground dark, the runes along the walls pulsing softly as the capital drew nearer with every passing stretch of stone. Inside, the mood had changed again. Now they were all dealing with the real shape of what lay ahead.
And Ludger, as usual, had no intention of softening it just because the truth was unpleasant.
Two days later, they were already waiting underground beneath the capital.
The hidden chamber they had settled into was little more than a widened pocket carved out of old earth and stone, supported by Ludger’s magic and reinforced just enough to remain stable without drawing too much attention from whatever structures, wards, or paranoid noble architects might exist above them. The tunnels branching out from it had multiplied over the last forty-eight hours, spreading in careful directions like roots feeling through the dark.
Ludger had expanded them methodically. Not recklessly. Not in the way he normally preferred when earth was involved.
Usually, if he wanted space, he made space. If he wanted a route, he shaped one. But here, under the capital, under a place layered in old power, noble estates, hidden protections, and likely more than a few things meant to punish intruders who dug where they should not, brute certainty would have been stupid.
He still had no idea exactly where the prisoners were being held. That was the problem.
Without that, the tunnels could only go so far before caution became more valuable than speed. He did not want to slam into some buried barrier, trip a ward hidden inside the stone, or crack open part of a protected structure and announce their presence to half the district above them.
So he had been restrained. Careful. Annoyingly careful.
The result was a web of exploratory routes and fallback paths, enough to give them movement and options, but not enough to call the work complete. It felt unfinished to him. Held back. Like standing with a weapon half-drawn because the room was too dark to know where the other blades were.
Viola, unsurprisingly, was bored out of her mind.
Even being under her family’s manor had not helped nearly as much as she probably imagined it would.
It was almost impressive how loudly a person could radiate boredom without actually making much noise. Elira, on the other hand, had become busy.
Very busy. Because while they waited for the right opening, Ludger had decided there was no reason to waste time. So he taught her. Specifically, he was teaching Elira how to form her spiritual core.