Deus Necros - Chapter 679: Talks

Chapter 679: Talks

“I…” Ludwig couldn’t say much to the queen. To agree is to sound greedy for power. To deny is simply to reject the throne.

The single syllable sat there like a mistake he could not take back, suspended between his tongue and the air of the hall. He was used to pressure that came with heat, claws, and steel, the kind you could answer with violence or movement. This pressure was quieter and far more precise. Every noble eye had already decided that whatever he said next would reveal the shape of his soul, and the Queen’s calm made it worse. She was not demanding. She was inviting him to hang himself with courtesy.

With the Emperor, honesty had been a weapon that the man respected. The throne had a certain blunt practicality to it, a ruler who had survived long enough to value direct answers even when they were unpleasant. Ludwig could be crude, could be straightforward, could even be rude in a way that framed itself as sincerity, and the Emperor would weigh it like a soldier weighs a tool. It had been a contest, but at least it was a contest with rules he understood.

Here, it won’t work, it will definitely backfire.

The Queen’s rules were different. Ludwig could feel it before she even spoke again. The hall itself felt arranged around her, not physically, but socially, like everyone was already leaning toward her judgment. He could not bully his way through this with courage and bluntness. Courage would be interpreted as ambition. Bluntness would be interpreted as insolence. Even silence would be interpreted as calculation.

The queen handed him a sharp blade and asked him to walk on it.

The gesture was simple, almost ceremonial, the kind of thing you could pretend was harmless if you wanted to lie to yourself. That was the trap. A blade did not need to be swung to cut. If you were forced to step on it willingly, the wound became your own decision, and everyone watching would call it proof of your nature rather than proof of the blade.

Only here did he realize who the most terrifying being in the hall was. It wasn’t about the power or the throne, it was about who could tame the one on the throne. And the queen was doing it with ease.

The Emperor’s authority was carved into banners, guards, and law. The Queen’s was carved into timing. She did not need to threaten, because the room threatened for her. She did not need to raise her voice, because the implication did it for her. Ludwig had killed things that could tear men apart, but he had learned long ago that there were predators who never needed claws. They simply needed you to speak.

“Mother!”

Celest’s voice cut into the tension like a hand grabbing a wrist before a knife fell. She stepped forward with the confidence of someone used to intervening, but Ludwig caught the subtle hesitation in her posture. She was not confronting an enemy. She was negotiating with a parent, and that meant even her bravery had to wear manners.

“He already has someone, it isn’t right.” Celest said.

’I do?’ Ludwig thought to himself.

The thought came quicker than he liked. It wasn’t panic, but it was the sharp irritation of being told he belonged somewhere without ever being consulted. He scanned his own recent choices like he was reviewing a battlefield, trying to find the point where he had stepped wrong.

“Oh, yes, I heard words, that you’ve been accompanying the lady of the house Bastos. To covet your master’s sister, that’s rather scandalous,” the Queen said.

The Queen delivered it like gossip, light and almost amused, which made it sharper than accusation. Ludwig noted the slight shift of nearby nobles, the small lean of bodies that pretended not to listen while feeding on every syllable.

“There is nothing going on between us,” Ludwig denied it all too fast it sounded suspicious.

He knew it the moment the words left him. Too quick. Too defensive. The sort of denial that sounded like a man trying to outrun a story rather than dismantle it. He wanted to bite the sentence back, but the court did not allow rewinds. If anything, the speed of his response was now a piece of entertainment for the room.

The Queen merely smiled, “I find it novel how you’re interested in someone who is older than you by seven hundred years and much, but I do hear that young men nowadays find mature women more appealing.” She turned to her daughter, “You need to learn more about being mature I suppose if you want the heart of someone like him.”

She had taken Celest’s attempt at rescue and turned it into a lesson, turning her daughter’s concern into a public comparison. It wasn’t cruel in the obvious way. It was cruel in the court way, where everything was said pleasantly and still left marks.

Ludwig couldn’t say a word while the two talked and only listened. Hoping with all his feelings that things would finish fast so he can leave to Andre.

He stayed still, face calm, hands controlled, because moving wrong in a hall like this invited interpretation. He let their words wash over him the way he let smoke wash over him in battle, present, choking, but not worth reacting to. In his mind the practical list stayed steady. Andre. Metallurgy. Noctivex. Pride. Anything else was noise he had to survive.

“Mother, you’re being mean,” the princess said, though she didn’t seem to mean her words.

Celest’s complaint was half protest and half performance, a way to push back without actually challenging authority. Ludwig recognized it as the same kind of maneuver nobles used when they wanted to appear kind while still staying safe. Even her softness had calculation in it, but he did not blame her. Palace children learned how to breathe in politics before they learned how to breathe in peace.

Turning to Ludwig, “let’s have some wine and snacks, it’s getting stuffy in here,” she said.

The invitation was a door. Not an escape from the Queen’s will, because nothing in this palace was outside it, but a shift to a place where the eyes were fewer and the words could be less guarded.

“I’ll oblige,” Ludwig replied as he nodded to the queen, trying to find any way to leave the place.

He made the nod respectful enough to avoid insult, quick enough to avoid being held longer than necessary. He did not linger on the Emperor’s gaze. He could feel it anyway, the weight of a ruler who was always measuring what could be useful and what could become dangerous.

Politics and women are a combo Ludwig never wanted to be mixed in with again.