Chapter 714
Luna had learned to worry because if she didn’t, no one else would. That difference mattered more than she wanted it to. Still, his words kept echoing.
If you think no one cares… make changes.
It was annoying how much sense it made. Annoying how it landed cleanly even when she tried to shake it off.
She looked ahead at the distant coastline, the port town slowly growing from a smear into a real shape. Home, his home, waiting with problems stacked like knives.
And she realized something that sat in her chest like a stone. Maybe she didn’t have to keep orbiting other people’s lives. Maybe she didn’t have to keep anchoring herself to jobs and contracts and roles that made her “useful” but never… anything else.
The idea was terrifying. And also, for the first time in a long time, quietly tempting.
Travel, she thought. Just… leave.
Not running. Not hiding. Leaving on purpose.
Go far enough that no one could tell her what she was supposed to be. See cities she’d only heard about in passing. Meet strangers who didn’t know her name or her reputation or what she was good at. Sleep without listening for footsteps. Think without someone else’s mission pressing down on her skull.
Find herself. Organize the mess of thoughts and feelings she’d kept locked behind sharp edges because there’d never been time to unpack them safely.
Luna breathed out again, slower this time, and let the sea carry her forward beside Ludger. She didn’t promise anything out loud. She wasn’t the type. But the seed had been planted. And it was growing.
The port town came into view like an old scar.
At first it was just geometry on the horizon, dark blocks against blue sky. Then rooftops sharpened, docks grew teeth, and the thin line of coastline turned into something real enough to smell: smoke, tar, salt, fish, wet wood.
Luna watched it grow larger with a strange tightness in her chest. Because now she couldn’t pretend she didn’t know.
Before she left anything, before she ran off to “find herself” like it was some clean, romantic solution, there was something she had to do first. Something that would determine her future. Something she couldn’t escape by walking away.
I have to decide what I am… here, she thought. Before I decide what I am anywhere else.
And she didn’t know if she hated that or needed it. Her eyes flicked sideways to Ludger, gliding over water like it was a road he’d paved himself. He’d shown her something this week without meaning to. Not just how to fight. How to move forward when the world didn’t cooperate.
If plan A didn’t work, he didn’t freeze. He didn’t mourn the plan. He pivoted. Plan B. Plan C. Plan D. Adaptation wasn’t a dramatic moment for him, it was breathing. It was the way he existed.
Luna had always been good at contingencies in combat. Escape routes. Backup blades. Shadows and angles. But this… this was different.This was applying it to her life. And that was harder than any labyrinth.
Because even with all those plans in her head, she didn’t actually want things to change too much. That was the ugly truth she kept bumping into.
What she knew as her reality, being Viola’s shadow, being the knife in the right place at the right time, having a clear role and a clear enemy, made her feel grounded. It gave the world edges. It gave it shape. It kept her from floating away into questions that had no answers.
The last week had been the opposite.
One week where she wasn’t guarding anyone important. One week where nobody gave her orders. One week where survival was the only job and the only person she had to manage was herself.
Freedom. She’d expected it to feel like relief. Sometimes it did. But mostly it was… terrifying. Because the moment no one needed her for a mission, she’d started thinking about what she needed. And that was a dangerous habit.
It made her look at her own goals, if she even had any, and realize how thin they were. How much of her life had been built on reacting, not choosing. How much “duty” had been a comfortable excuse to never ask what she wanted when the knives were finally sheathed.
Luna’s platform hissed over the water as she stared at the port’s docks, now close enough to see gulls circling above them like impatient scavengers. She swallowed.
Plan A, she thought. Nothing changes. I go back to being who I was.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Safe. Familiar. Grounded.
Plan B, she thought. I change something small first.
A conversation. A boundary. A request. A crack in the old shape of her life.
Plan C…
She didn’t finish that one. Not yet. Ludger’s voice cut through the sea wind, not looking at her, eyes locked on the harbor like he was already counting problems.
“Stay sharp,” he said casually. “If we’ve been gone a week, the port will be full of talk.”
Luna nodded, even though he hadn’t asked. Her gaze stayed on the approaching land. She knew she wasn’t ready to run. Not yet.
But she also knew the week had changed something in her, quietly, like a blade sliding into a sheath. And whatever she did next, whatever choice she made when her feet hit that dock—would decide whether she kept living inside the shape that grounded her… Or whether she finally had the courage to redraw it.
— —
Back in the port town, the SS Elaine looked like a wounded animal that had crawled into a dockyard to lick its wounds.
The hull had been hauled into a shallow maintenance cradle, planks stripped, metal reinforcements exposed, and scaffolding wrapped around it like a cage. Every scar from the battle against the sea beast had been marked in chalk, splintered ribs, cracked seams, torn rigging points, and the smell of tar and fresh-cut wood hung thick in the air.
The Iron Hand Guild had turned the dock into a war zone of labor.
Hammers rang from dawn to night. Saws screamed. Rope snapped tight under winches. Men and women moved in constant rotation with tired eyes and steady hands, passing boards, mixing resin, fastening braces, sealing seams like they were stitching a wounded soldier back together.
They’d been working like that for a while. Working while searching.
Working while scanning the horizon. Working while sending boats out and pulling them back in, empty-handed. Non-stop. Because the ship had to be ready as soon as possible. And because if it was ready, it meant the hunt could continue.
Viola stood on the rails of the stone bridge, her hands gripping the cold stone like she could squeeze answers out of it. The wind tugged at her hair, salted her lips, and carried the distant rhythm of repair work behind her.
Her eyes stayed fixed on the horizon. Heavy bags sat under them like bruises.
She hadn’t slept much in the last week. Not properly. Not the kind of sleep that reset you. Just short, bitter fragments stolen between reports and false sightings, between anger and fear she refused to name.
But even like that, half-broken, exhausted, she was still standing. Still watching. Still ready to continue. For the searches. Footsteps approached from behind, multiple sets, measured and quiet. Viola didn’t turn at first. She didn’t need to.
She knew the sound of the people who were still here.
Rathen came up beside her with the others in a loose line, Maurien, Renvar, Kaela, Valk, and Shera. They all looked worn in different ways. Sunburn and salt crust. Weapons cleaned too many times. Eyes that had started to expect bad news before it arrived.
Rathen didn’t speak immediately. He followed her gaze out over the sea, jaw tight, like he was sharing the burden for a heartbeat before saying what he had to say.
“Lady Viola,” he began, voice careful, “you should sleep.”
She didn’t react.
He tried again, softer. “The maintenance will take time. Pushing yourself—”
That was when she turned. Fast. Like a snapped cord. Her eyes were bloodshot, her expression sharp enough to cut, and the anger came out raw, not elegant, not noble, just human.
“When will it be over?” she demanded.
The words hit the air like a thrown knife.
The group went still. Kaela’s shoulders tightened. Valk glanced away. Shera’s jaw clenched. Maurien watched with that calm predator patience of his, like he understood exactly what was happening and didn’t judge it.
Rathen didn’t flinch. He met her gaze and answered honestly, because lying to her now would be suicidal.
“At least a day,” he said. “Minimum. With everyone working—”
“A day?” Viola snapped, the word tasting like poison. “A day?”
Her hands tightened on the stone rail, knuckles whitening, and for a second it looked like she might actually shake the bridge apart through sheer will.
Then she inhaled, sharp, forced, and the anger didn’t disappear. It just compressed. Ready to be used.
Viola’s grip on the stone rail tightened until her knuckles looked carved out of chalk.
“A day is too long,” she said, voice sharp with the kind of exhaustion that made every word come out like an accusation. “We can hurry the maintenance if we ask for help. The rest of the Lionsguard. More hands, more speed.”
Kaela didn’t even bother hiding the irritation in her face.
“It would take days for them to arrive,” she shot back. “Days. You’d know that if you weren’t so tired you can’t think straight.”
Viola’s head snapped toward her. The glare she gave Kaela could’ve peeled paint.
Kaela held it anyway, jaw tight, eyes steady. She looked like she’d slept as little as Viola, she just hadn’t made it everyone else’s problem. Rathen stepped in before Viola could turn it into a real fight.
“Either way,” he said, measured, “you have to send a message back home.”
Viola froze a fraction. The air around her went still in a different way.
Rathen continued, voice careful but firm. “You need to inform Ludger’s family. He vanished with Luna after the fight.”
Viola’s eyes widened just slightly, like the words had found a nerve she’d been avoiding for a week.
Then the anger returned, hot and immediate.
“No,” she said.
Rathen didn’t blink. “Yes.”
Viola turned fully toward him, face tight. “We don’t know what happened. We don’t know—”
“We know enough,” Rathen replied. “They deserve to be told what we know.”
Viola’s breath hitched, and her voice rose with it. “And what exactly are you going to tell his mother?”
Rathen hesitated for half a heartbeat, just long enough for Viola to step closer and sharpen the knife.
“What?” she demanded. “That her son disappeared after a fight with a giant monster?”
Her eyes flashed. “That he’s probably being digested in its stomach right now?”
Kaela flinched at the image. Shera’s mouth tightened. Renvar looked away, as if the horizon was suddenly fascinating. Maurien didn’t move at all. His eyes stayed on Viola like he was watching a blade wobble on the edge between breaking and cutting deeper.
Rathen’s expression hardened, not angry, just… grounded.
“I’m going to tell her the truth,” he said. “That the ship was damaged in the fight. That Ludger and Luna went overboard. That searches have been ongoing for a week and we haven’t found them.”
Viola let out a short, bitter laugh that had no humor in it.
“The truth,” she repeated, voice dripping with contempt. “You think that helps? You think Elaine is going t
o hear ‘ongoing searches’ and ‘no sign’ and just, what, thank you for your honesty?”