Chapter 967

Another tremor passed through the shelters, making a few people flinch before settling again. Varik paused near a support arch and let his eyes drift over the civilians huddled in the chamber beyond, but his thoughts remained elsewhere.

On the Regent. On Ludger. On how impossible it had become to hold both men in the same understanding of reality.

Alphonse spoke in polished certainties. Everything had an explanation, every threat a shape convenient enough to justify the next move.

Ludger, on the other hand, moved like a blade cutting through cloth. Abrupt. Hard to predict. Impossible to fit neatly into anyone else’s narrative without losing something important.

That was why Varik still felt divided. He considered Ludger an ally. Or at least, he had. A useful one. A dangerous one. A frustrating one, certainly. But an ally nonetheless, someone moving against parts of the Empire that deserved to be dragged into the light.

And yet… he couldn’t understand him. That was the truth of it. Not because Ludger was irrational. The opposite, really.

The boy was often too rational in ways that made ordinary men seem slow by comparison. But his decisions were taken from a place Varik could not always reach. A place colder. More direct. Less restrained by the habits that shaped adults who had spent years surviving inside imperial structures.

Ludger saw rot and acted. Varik saw rot and measured consequences until the room around him changed shape. That difference mattered.

And it left him standing in underground shelters, managing civilians for a plan he still did not fully believe in, while the capital above them burned in the hands of a boy he was no longer sure whether to call traitor, weapon, or the last honest enemy the Empire had made.

Varik exhaled quietly through his nose. A month. Only a month since the Regent had shared the plan. And already it felt like he had been living in someone else’s life ever since.

He resumed walking through the shelters, calm on the outside as always, but inwardly the same old question remained lodged where certainty should have been.

He did not know what to believe anymore.

And that, more than the shaking stone or the frightened civilians or the poison above, was what unsettled him most. All the pieces placed before Varik led in the same direction. One by one, they stacked into a shape that was difficult to argue with. Ludger had investigated the Empire’s shadows. Ludger had moved people out from under imperial reach. Ludger had protected the Emperor’s half-sister inside the Lionsguard. Ludger had crossed lines that ordinary men only crossed when they were already preparing to abandon the law entirely.

And now the Emperor was dead. On the surface, it was all too clean. Too aligned. Too easy to arrange into the simple conclusion the Regent wanted everyone to accept. Ludger had been working against the Empire. Varik could not deny that the evidence pointed there.

But his gut… his gut refused to rest. Because the more he thought about Ludger, the less that neat conclusion sat right inside him. The boy had been moving against the Empire, yes. Of that Varik was no longer truly doubtful.

But not for the reasons being fed to the city. Not for ambition. Not for power. Not for some absurd plan to seize control through a hidden princess like a cheap court tale dragged into reality.

Varik’s instincts kept whispering the same thing no matter how much logic tried to bury it. Ludger was doing all of it for a reason. A real one. A reason ugly enough that the boy had chosen to act rather than explain. And that thought brought something far more unpleasant with it.

Guilt.

Varik’s steps slowed slightly as he passed through another chamber of the underground shelter, his expression remaining composed even while the feeling tightened in his chest.

He had not even tried. That was the part needling at him now. He had accepted distance. Accepted confusion. Accepted the comfort of not pushing too hard when Ludger’s actions became harder to read. He had told himself there were limits, that some things were better left untouched, that if Ludger wanted help he would ask for it.

Cowardice dressed as patience. That was what it looked like now. Varik had called the boy an ally, perhaps even a friend in the quiet privacy of his own thoughts.

But when the lines blurred and the accusations came, he had not been there to stand in front of the storm and demand the whole truth. He had not even tried to see his friend’s side before the machine of the capital began turning. His jaw tightened for only a second. He had been on guard duty during the party. That fact should have made things easier.

He had not been in the room when it happened. Had not seen the blackout. Had not seen the fatal moment. Had not watched the blood spill. Which should have left space for doubt to breathe.

Instead, it had done the opposite. Because he had nothing of his own. Only other people’s certainty. Everyone said the same thing.

The Emperor dead. Every witness, every report, every retelling repeated the same conclusion in different words until the weight of it became harder and harder to ignore. Ludger killed the Emperor.

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Varik stopped for a moment near one of the stone support pillars, the distant tremors from above rolling faintly through the underground like the heartbeat of something monstrous.

That sentence hung in his mind, and no matter how many times he turned it over, it refused to sit properly. Not because it was impossible. That would have been easier. Ludger was certainly capable of killing. Varik had never lied to himself about that.

The boy had always possessed that edge in him, the ability to decide that someone needed to die and then move forward without wasting time performing moral confusion for the sake of others.

So no, the killing itself was not what felt wrong.

It was the shape of it. The way everything about the event fit too neatly into the Regent’s hands afterward. Varik exhaled slowly through his nose. Everyone said the same thing. And still, he could not stop feeling that something important had been cut out of the story before it reached him.

Something that might have changed everything. Or maybe nothing. That uncertainty was its own kind of torment.

Because if Ludger truly had done it… if he had really killed Halvyr with his own hands for reasons Varik still could not see… then perhaps Varik had never understood him at all.

But if he had not… If the truth was more twisted, more trapped, more deliberate than the capital now claimed… Then Varik had already failed him once by standing still and letting others define what his friend had become.

“No… it feels like the emperor knew this would happen and he still invited Ludger to the party… maybe he was planning to stop him and this happened unexpectedly… but…”

He lowered his gaze briefly, expression still under control for anyone watching, but inwardly the guilt only sharpened. All the evidence pointed one way. His instincts pulled another.

And somewhere above, in the poisoned dark of the capital, that contradiction was still tearing streets apart with its bare hands.

While that thought still sat heavy in his chest, Varik’s eyes drifted across the shelter chamber and landed on the Senate members gathered near the far wall.

There were too many of them in one place for it to feel natural.

Not openly clustered, none of them were foolish enough for that. They kept respectable distance, maintaining the illusion of frightened officials enduring the same underground uncertainty as everyone else. But they still found ways to lean closer than necessary, to whisper at the edges of lamp light, to glance over shoulders before speaking.

Varik watched them in silence. His guild had worked for them. Always had. Senate members were cautious by nature, selfish by training, and slippery in the way only powerful men became after surviving too long near courts and ledgers. But tonight, they were acting stranger than usual.

More nervous. Not the ordinary kind of fear brought by war and shaking stone. Each time a tremor rolled faintly through the underground chambers, Varik noticed the same reaction. One senator would stiffen. Another would pause mid-whisper. A third would quickly reach toward his wrist beneath the sleeve of his robe, fingers pressing against something hidden there before relaxing again.

Then another would do the same.

And another. As if they all had something important strapped or fastened beneath their sleeves. Something they were checking.

Varik’s expression did not change, but that detail lodged itself immediately in his mind. He kept walking his route, but his attention remained partly fixed on them. Their voices stayed low, too low to cleanly catch from this distance beneath the shelter’s murmurs, but their body language said enough. They were not simply discussing the situation above. They were waiting on it.

Waiting for some signal.

Or some result.

Another tremor passed through the stone, and one of the senators, a narrow-faced man who had spent years pretending not to enjoy other people’s downfall, pressed two fingers hard against his concealed wrist before exhaling slowly.

Varik pretended not to notice. That, too, was part of his work. A man learned more by seeming inattentive than by staring too hard.

Time dragged.

The people in the shelters endured in muted waves of anxiety, whispering among themselves, trying to sleep in bad positions, trying not to listen too closely to the distant violence overhead. Varik continued his inspections, moving from chamber to chamber with the same composed rhythm as before.

And then, for a couple of hours… nothing. No muffled collapses or rolling impacts from above. The capital went still enough that the silence itself began to feel unnatural. Varik slowed near one of the stair access points, eyes narrowing slightly. Had the Empire finally gotten him?

It was possible.

The thought sat strangely in him. Not relief. Not disappointment. Something murkier. He had heard, somewhere amidst all the chaos and political filth surrounding the case, that Ludger’s birthday party was supposed to be tomorrow.

Varik stared for a moment at the stone wall opposite him, expression unreadable. What a time for a boy his age to be fighting the entire capital. The thought would have sounded absurd if spoken aloud. A child’s birthday on one side. The full weight of an empire on the other. And yet that was exactly what reality had become.

He exhaled through his nose and glanced again toward the Senate members.

Then the shaking returned. Not once. Not faintly. Continuously.

The first tremor rolled through the stone hard enough to rattle lantern hooks. Then another followed before the first had fully faded. Then another. And another. Not random impacts this time, not the chaotic violence of earlier battles.

Like giant footsteps echoing through the capital.

The underground chambers reacted at once. Civilians stiffened. A child whimpered. Guards glanced upward instinctively. Even the Senate whispers broke for a moment as everyone listened to the strange, repeating thunder moving through the city above.

Varik stood perfectly still.

What had Ludger planned this time? Because it had to be Ludger. Nothing else in the capital tonight had moved like that, nothing with enough raw force to turn the whole city into a drum while still keeping such a deliberate rhythm.

The Senate members were checking their wrists again now, more openly than before, some of them doing it twice in the span of a few breaths. That did not escape Varik’s notice either.

Something was changing above. Something they expected. Something they feared not because it was unknown… but because it might no longer be going the way they had been promised.

Varik’s gaze remained fixed on the ceiling stone as the giant, steady tremors continued through the poisoned dark overhead.

And despite himself, beneath all the doubt, guilt, and unanswered questions, a small, sharp thought rose in him.

“Of course the crazy boy is still fighting.”