Ludger took one more step, and the world tilted. The red haze broke all at once, leaving only pain and the weight of blood loss behind. His knees hit the ground first. Then his face met the dirt.

For a moment, everything was soundless—just the dull roar of blood in his ears and the faint scent of iron and ash.

“...You done redecorating the area, kid?”

Gaius’s voice came from somewhere above him, dry and tired. A shadow fell over Ludger, then strong hands grabbed his shoulders and hauled him upright. The movement made the world spin, but Gaius steadied him with a grunt.

Ludger blinked until his vision stopped swimming. “Still alive?” he muttered.

“Barely,” Gaius said. “And that’s the generous estimate.”

He shoved something into Ludger’s hands—a strip of half-eaten rabbit. “Eat. Before you pass out and make me drag your corpse back to Meira.”

Ludger chewed mechanically, every swallow feeling like work. The meat was dry, but it grounded him. The dizziness eased, just enough to think again.

Gaius crouched beside him, squinting at the battlefield below. Aaron’s body lay still in the crater, smoke curling from the sand around him. “Well,” the old mage said, scratching his beard, “I’ll give you this—you hit hard. But I didn’t see much strategy in that brawl.”

Ludger exhaled, still chewing. “There was one.”

“Oh?” Gaius raised an eyebrow.

“The moment he saw you eating,” Ludger said, voice rough but steady, “he realized you were recovering. That scared him more than anything I could do. He rushed the fight to finish it before you got back on your feet.”

Gaius looked at him for a long second, then barked out a short laugh. “So you baited him with my lunch.”

“Worked, didn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Gaius shook his head, smiling despite himself. “Pragmatic to the bone. When it comes to insanity, that is.”

Ludger swallowed the last bite, wiped blood from his mouth, and stared down at his trembling hands. The skin was blistered, the veins still faintly glowing from residual mana. “Pragmatic doesn’t mean smart,” he said.

“Maybe not,” Gaius replied. “But it means you’re still breathing.”

He pushed himself to his feet and offered a hand. “Come on. We’ll find shelter before nightfall. Then you can tell me what kind of mess this bridge job of yours really is.”

Ludger took the hand, rising slowly. His whole body felt like cracked stone, but he managed a dry half-smile. “You’ll hate it.”

“Wouldn’t be a proper favor if I didn’t.”

They started up the slope together, leaving the broken crater and its silence behind. The mountain wind caught the fading dust, sweeping it away until nothing was left but the scent of blood and sand.

For now, they’d survived. And tomorrow, the south awaited.

Night settled over the area, quiet and heavy. The wind had died down, leaving only the faint hiss of cooling stone and the distant crackle of their campfire.

Ludger sat cross-legged beside the flames, shirt half torn, his arms bandaged with strips of Gaius’s washed cloak. The burns along his palms glowed faintly but it was healing.

Across from him, Gaius had set Aaron’s body under a sheet of conjured stone, a rough cairn to keep scavengers away until dawn. The old mage lowered himself onto a rock with a sigh that sounded like a landslide.

“Hell of a day,” he said.

“Yeah,” Ludger murmured. The flames reflected in his eyes, gold and cold. “We made too much noise. The tremors will draw people.”

“That’s optimistic,” Gaius said. “More likely they’ll draw attention we don’t want.”

Ludger nodded once. “Then I move south before anyone connects the dots. I’ll go incognito, no Lionsguard colors. Just a traveler heading for the coast.”

Gaius poked the fire with a stick, sparks drifting up like lazy stars. “And what exactly are you investigating down there?”

“The coast,” Ludger said. “That guild wants that bridge built, but the southern side is a mistery.”

Gaius’s eyes narrowed. “And you’re walking straight toward them.”

“Better me than the recruits,” Ludger said. “If they’re planning to sabotage the bridge or hit the Lionsguard, I need to know first.”

Gaius leaned back, rubbing the back of his neck. “Ah, youth. Cold logic, reckless timing.”

Ludger managed a thin smile. “Runs in the family.”

The silence stretched for a while, broken only by the pop of the fire and the whisper of shifting sand. Then Gaius said quietly, “I’ll head to Meira after dawn. Deliver Aaron’s body to his guild, tell them what happened.”

“They won’t like that.”

“They don’t have to,” Gaius replied. “They’ll see what’s left of him and know he crossed the wrong people.” He looked into the fire, eyes reflecting orange. “Besides, I’ll tell them someone wanted me alive. If the client has ears there, he’ll hear it.”

“You think you can trace him?”

“Not easily,” Gaius said. “Whoever paid for my capture doesn’t leave tracks. But he’ll know I got away, and that’ll rattle him more than anything.”

Ludger stared into the fire, thinking. “So you’ll keep digging.”

Gaius nodded slowly. “After I help you with that damned bridge, yeah. Once you’re set, I’ll go back to chasing ghosts.”

“Dangerous ghosts.”

The old mage chuckled. “Kid, at my age, those are the only kind worth chasing.”

Ludger exhaled through his nose, a faint smile ghosting across his face. “Then I guess we both have work to do.”

Gaius lifted the canteen, took a long drink, then handed it across the flames. “To survival, then.”

Ludger took it, swallowed once, and handed it back. “To unfinished business.”

The wind picked up again, carrying embers into the dark.

Tomorrow, they would go separate ways—the teacher to the north, the student to the sea.

But for tonight, they rested.

Dawn crept over the ridge in slow strokes of gray and gold. The air still carried the chill of the mountain, sharp and clean, a stark contrast to the smoke and blood of the day before.

Ludger and Gaius stood side by side at the edge of the camp, packs slung and words few. The cairn behind them marked Aaron’s resting place — or what passed for one.

“You sure about this?” Gaius asked, tightening the strap of his satchel. “You’re half-broken, kid.”

Ludger adjusted the green scarf around his neck, the one Viola had given him. “I’ll manage. I’ve had worse mornings.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“Wasn’t meant to be.”

They shared a look — the kind that carried unspoken trust and exhaustion in equal measure.

“Don’t get yourself killed, Ludger,” Gaius said finally.

“You either. You still owe me for that bridge. Also, keep a low profile while heading south after recovering. It would be better for you to surprise everyone there.”

Gaius snorted, shook his head, and started north, vanishing down the ridge path in a slow, deliberate stride. Ludger watched until the old man’s figure blurred into the dust, then turned south.

The road ahead shimmered under the early light, long and empty.

He started walking.

Each step sent a dull ache up his legs, and his arms throbbed under the wraps. The healing was slow, uneven. He used Healing Touch as much as possible.

If he’d known it would come to this—half-crippled, drained, trekking alone through the border wilds—he would’ve demanded a shipment of mana potions from House Torvares before leaving Lionfang.

He’d earned that much.

Hell, after all the walls he’d built for them, all the routes he’d secured, and the little fact that he was now handling their mess about that damned bridge, they could’ve spared a crate or two.

He exhaled, half a sigh, half a chuckle. “Next time, I’m billing them by the bruise.”

The path wound down from the rocky slope into dry grassland. The air warmed, and the wind began to smell faintly of salt — the first hint of the southern sea.

Ludger rolled his shoulder again, testing motion. His right arm responded fine; the left still ached like hell but obeyed. Progress.

He kept walking. Healing. Thinking.

The coast awaited — and with it, the people who had wanted this bridge built so badly they’d started scheming over it.

He didn’t know if Torvares’ decision to rejoin the project had been wisdom or political compromise. But he’d make sure no one turned it into a graveyard. Even if it meant he had to play ghost himself for a while.

By the time Gaius reached Meira, the mountains were nothing but jagged shadows behind him. The city lay sprawled across the foothills like a bruise — gray stone walls, smoke curling from the forges, and that low hum of mana crystals powering everything from lanterns to gate locks.

He’d been gone long enough for the streets to forget him, and long enough for him to prefer it that way.

The guards at the western gate didn’t ask questions when they saw the sigil of his old guild on his cloak. They just stepped aside. His reputation still carried weight, even if his body didn’t.

He went straight to the guild hall.

Aaron’s guild — The Iron Stave — was one of the oldest in Meira, its banners black and silver, its stone facade carved with proud, empty promises. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of steel polish. The chatter dipped when Gaius walked in.

Half the room recognized him; the other half just knew enough to move out of his way.

He marched through the hall, boots echoing on the marble, and pushed through the office door without knocking.

Behind the desk sat Guildmaster Relna — a tall woman with dark braids and ink stains on her fingers. She looked up from a pile of ledgers, eyes narrowing. “Gaius Stonefist. You’re supposed to be missing.”

He dropped a wrapped bundle onto her desk. The fabric fell open just enough to show a bloodied arm — Aaron’s, still bearing the runed bracers.

“Suppose you were expecting him instead,” Gaius said. His tone was quiet, even, but the air in the room seemed to tighten around it.

Relna’s gaze flicked to the arm, then back to him. Her face didn’t change. “You’re making a statement, I assume?”

“Call it closure.”

She set down her pen. “Aaron went missing three weeks ago. I assumed he was handling a private commission.”

“He was,” Gaius said. “And that commission was me.”

Relna leaned back in her chair. “If this is an accusation—”

“It’s not,” he interrupted. “It’s a question. Who paid for that job?”

Her expression didn’t flinch, but her eyes sharpened. “I didn’t authorize it. We don’t traffic in assassination or kidnapping.”

“That’s funny,” Gaius said. “Because the chains he used were enchanted with detailed runes. Well, he claimed to be the guildmaster of an underworld guild. I hope that you like that..”

Relna’s lips thinned. “Aaron had autonomy. He handled his own operations outside the board. If he took a job like that, it wasn’t through us.”

Gaius studied her for a long moment, silent. His senses were still sluggish, but he didn’t need it to read the subtle shift in her breathing — the way her fingers tapped once against the desk before she stilled them.

“You don’t know,” he said finally. “Or you don’t want to know.”

Relna exhaled slowly, her eyes drifting toward the window. “Both, maybe. The man was ambitious and quiet.”

“Someone wanted me alive,” Gaius said. “Aaron made that clear. That means your guild was the middle link in a chain, not the end.”

She frowned, folding her hands. “You think one of my contacts sold the job?”

“I think whoever paid you has enough reach to cover tracks inside Meira’s ledgers. That narrows it down.”

Relna gave a low hum, somewhere between irritation and reluctant respect. “You’re still the same pain in the ass you were ten years ago.”

“Consistency’s a virtue,” Gaius said.

Relna sighed and leaned forward. “Fine. I’ll open the books. But if this goes higher than us—”

“It already does.”

He turned toward the door.

“Gaius,” she called after him.

He stopped.

“If you find whoever was behind this… what then?”

He didn’t look back. “Then I make sure they wish they’d paid for the kill instead.”

The door shut behind him, leaving the guildmaster staring at the wrapped arm on her desk.

Outside, Gaius pulled his cloak tight and started down the main street, the sound of the city rising around him. The trail was cold, but not gone. Somewhere in Meira, someone had ordered his capture.

And they still didn’t know he was free.

A week passed.

Meira moved at its usual pace—loud, tense, pretending it wasn’t sitting on a pile of secrets. Gaius spent the days healing and waiting, dividing his time between the forge district and a rented room above an apothecary that smelled like old herbs and worse ale.

He didn’t press Relna. If she could find anything, she would. If not, that was its own answer.

On the seventh morning, she came to him.

The knock was sharp. When Gaius opened the door, Relna stood there in her travel cloak, dust on her boots, and a folder tucked under one arm.

“I looked,” she said before he could greet her. “Every supplier, every scribe, every enchanter within fifty leagues of Meira.”

Gaius stepped aside. “Come in before you start breaking my floorboards.”

She entered, dropped the folder onto the table. It was thin—too thin.

“No one in the city could’ve made those chains,” she said. “Not with the kind of density and suppression layering you had mentioned. Even the forges in the capital would’ve struggled to replicate it without years of access to high-tier runes.”

Gaius crossed his arms. “So they weren’t local.”

“Not even close,” Relna said. “Whoever supplied Aaron had access to something off-record. The chains you described weren’t designed to kill—they were designed to contain. That means the client wanted you alive.”

Gaius’s expression didn’t change, but his jaw flexed once. “Didn’t I already say that? Still nothing on who the client was?”

Relna shook her head. “No name, no payment trail. Whatever deal Aaron made, it was clearly behind the scenes.”

She hesitated then, eyes narrowing slightly. “There’s one thing I am curious about, though.”

“Oh?”

She folded her arms. “How the hell did you escape those chains? You know as well as I do—they nullify mana output. The best swords couldn’t even scratch them. Only a weapon forged for siege-class monsters could’ve done that.”

Gaius chuckled, low and rough. “Let’s just say that I got the help from a sword with a sharp tongue.”

Relna stared, unamused. “That’s not an answer.”

“Didn’t say it was.”

She sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Fine. Keep your mysteries. But if whoever commissioned Aaron comes sniffing around, you’ll tell me before the city catches fire again, right?”

“I’ll try to keep the flames tidy,” Gaius said.

Relna gave him a long look—half exasperation, half reluctant respect—then gathered her cloak. “You always did make my paperwork hell.”

When she left, the room fell quiet again.

Gaius picked up the folder she’d left and thumbed through the sparse notes—scribes’ denials, blacksmith records, rune logs. Nothing useful. But the absence was its own clue.

Chains like those didn’t appear out of nowhere. Whoever had commissioned them had resources that reached beyond Meira’s borders—maybe imperial lands entirely.

He leaned back in his chair, exhaling through his nose. “A sword with a sharp tongue,” he muttered, half amused. “And a target painted on his back.”

His lips curved into a thin, grim smile.

“Well, kid… guess we’re both chasing ghosts now.”

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