Once Elaine had her dance, she gave Ludger’s hand a last squeeze before stepping back with a satisfied, motherly nod. But almost immediately after, a faint grimace crossed her face, subtle, but unmistakable to anyone who knew her well. Elaine pressed a hand lightly to her stomach, eyes narrowing at her own body as if it had personally betrayed her.

  She had, after all, eaten her own weight in pastries, chocolates, and whatever exotic desserts Meronia’s finest chefs had produced for the occasion.

  “…I may have overindulged,” she muttered.

  “No kidding,” Ludger deadpanned.

  Elaine sighed and cast a discreet Healing Touch over her abdomen. A faint glow washed over her skin, soothing the discomfort. Seeing that it wasn’t enough, Ludger placed his hand over hers and used Healing Touch again, more precise, more efficient. Between the two casts, her expression relaxed almost instantly.

  “Much better,” she admitted, patting his cheek lightly. “Thank you, dear.”

  Ludger nodded. “No problem. Just… maybe don’t compete with northerners next time.”

  Elaine sniffed. “Freyra dared me.”

  “That’s exactly the problem.”

  She waved him off, already moving toward the quiet room where she’d left the twins napping. Ludger followed her part of the way, making sure she was steady on her feet. Once she disappeared through the corridor, he exhaled deeply.

  He was done dancing. And more importantly, it was time.

  Time to retrieve Viola’s birthday gift while everyone was distracted by music, gossip, and Torvares’s bottomless appetite for hosting.

  Ludger slipped out of the ballroom, moving along a quiet hallway lit by soft lanterns. Nobody paid him attention, everyone who mattered was too busy congratulating Viola or trying to gain favor with the Torvares name.

  Behind him, the crowd burst into laughter. Torvares himself had realized Ludger was leaving and immediately took action, by drinking twice as fast and talking twice as loudly.

  “Did I ever tell you how Viola defeated her first frost paladin at eleven?! Brilliant girl! Truly brilliant! And wait until you hear about the time she, no, no, you must listen! This one is legendary!”

  He was, very efficiently, filling the entire ballroom with his booming voice. Ludger almost smiled.

  Good. Buy me time, old man.

  As Torvares’s proud boasting echoed through the halls, distracting every noble within fifty meters, Ludger made his way toward the side stairway, where he had hidden the carefully wrapped sculpture days ago. It was almost time to end the night with something unforgettable.

  The next hour drifted by almost unnoticed. The ballroom was warm, glowing, steeped in music and laughter, and for a while it seemed as if the celebration might stretch on endlessly. But the night wore on, and people began to feel it, first subtly, then all at once.

  A few nobles started to sway too gently when they stood still. One merchant laughed a little too loudly at a joke no one else heard. Several adventurer guests had moved on to competitive drinking games in a far corner, each round louder than the last. Servants exchanged worried looks. Musicians, while stalwart, were beginning to show the tiny signs of fatigue around their eyes.

  It was the universal signal: end the night before someone embarrasses themselves.

  Soon, the first guests approached Viola and Torvares, offering polite farewells. Viola handled every goodbye with graceful poise, even though her heels were beginning to betray her. Torvares accepted each handshake, each bow, each praise with the booming pride of a grandfather who could have run this party for another three hours without blinking.

  Then, right as the early departures filed through the open doors of the manor, a faint whisper drifted inward from the courtyard. At first it was barely noticeable, just a flicker of sound.

  Then it grew.

  “What is that?”

  “I thought the party was over—”

  “Did… did you see that?”

  “No, seriously, come here!”

  “Hey, what’s going on outside?!”

  The murmurs thickened, sharpened, then spread quickly through the cluster of departing nobles. Curiosity rippled from one group to the next like a wave rolling across the ballroom floor. A handful of nobles hurried outside. Northerners followed, less subtle, more enthusiastic. Merchants abandoned their drinking. Even some of the guards leaned toward the doors instinctively.

  Before long, nearly everyone who wasn’t too intoxicated to walk began drifting toward the exit.

  Confusion tugged at Viola’s expression. She exchanged a glance with Arslan, then turned to her grandfather.

  “Grandfather?” she asked softly. “Is something wrong?”

  Torvares’s lips curved into a smile, not the political kind, but the deeply satisfied kind of a man who had been waiting for this exact moment.

  “It’s nothing troublesome,” he assured her. “The opposite, in fact.”

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  His tone only made her more curious. The mystery hung in the air like a quiet promise.

  So Viola gathered her dress, careful not to trip on the embroidered hem, and stepped toward the grand entrance. Arslan accompanied her immediately, a silent protector at her side. Several northerners, sensing something significant, followed with booming steps. Torvares walked behind them with an air of calm amusement, as if leading them into a reveal he had prepared personally.

  They stepped out into the cool night air.

  The courtyard glowed with lantern light and starlight.

  And then Viola saw the cause of the commotion, And her breath stopped in her throat.

  In the center of the garden, between the trimmed hedges and the lantern-lit stone path, stood the source of the commotion. A sculpture.But not like any statue anyone had ever seen.

  It was large, taller than a grown man, sculpted with such detail and precision that the air seemed to still be around it. The stone looked alive, so vivid in color, so flawlessly smooth and textured that several people gasped, wondering if they were looking at real flesh frozen in time.

  The sculpture depicted a woman, arms open wide, her posture warm and welcoming, caught in the exact moment of bending slightly forward. Ready to catch a small girl leaping joyfully into her embrace.

  The girl’s expression was pure delight, her hair tied in a loose ribbon that fluttered like she had been mid-jump for real. The woman’s smile was radiant, soft, full of a love so real it pierced through stone and memory alike. For a few heartbeats, the crowd murmured in confusion. Some people whispered—

  “Is that… Viola?”

  “Wait… no—Viola was never that small recently—”

  “But that face—”

  And then recognition hit.Hard. It rippled through the entire crowd, freezing everyone in place as their minds aligned on the same breathtaking realization. The woman in the sculpture was Violette. The late Violette.

  Torvares’s daughter. Viola’s mother. The woman whose portraits were scattered throughout her room, cherished and preserved but never enough to fill the void she left behind. The sculpture captured not her nobility or her beauty as a lady, but her love. Her joy. Her warmth.

  The moment of a mother catching her daughter in a carefree embrace. Something so many of them had forgotten, or had never been privileged enough to witness. Yvar was the first to break.

  He silently raised a hand to his face, trying, foolishly, to hide his reaction. But the moment his palm touched his eyes, the tears spilled over in a cascade he couldn’t stop. His shoulders trembled; his breath cracked. He remembered her, not as a noble lady, but as his first promising student. Kind. Sharp-minded. Someone who smiled even when she didn’t need to.

  He remembered her funeral. He remembered Viola standing there, too young to understand.

  And now… seeing this… Yvar covered his face more tightly, but the tears only grew heavier.

  Arslan, meanwhile, stood motionless, stiff as a pillar. But his eyes… they told everything. A flood of emotions churned behind them. Good memories. Painful ones. Complicated ones.

  He had a history with Violette. A story that had never had the chance to finish. A wound that had never fully healed. And now he was staring at her again, alive in a way that felt cruel and comforting all at once.

  His jaw tightened. His throat bobbed. He looked away for a moment, as if the intensity of it was something he physically couldn’t bear. The garden fell completely silent. Only the sound of wind brushing through the leaves moved through the air.

  People forgot the party. Forgot the lanterns. Forgot the gowns and suits and dancing. All eyes were drawn to the sculpture. To Violette.

  To the moment a mother held her daughter, forever captured in stone by a son she never met… and a brother who had given a piece of himself to ease a wound he had never caused.

  And Viola, Viola took one slow step forward, hand over her mouth, eyes trembling. She didn’t cry. But she was seconds away.

  Torvares stepped forward, wiping the back of his hand under his eye with a barely contained tremor. The old lord cleared his throat, but the sound cracked anyway. When he finally spoke, his voice carried across the silent garden, steady, but undeniably thick with emotion.

  “…I cried for an entire day,” he admitted.

  Several heads snapped toward him in surprise. Even Arslan blinked.

  Torvares smiled faintly, not the polished noble smile, but something rawer, worn down by memory.

  “When Ludger first showed me this sculpture, fully completed… I wept like an old fool. Couldn’t stop. One whole day lost to tears.” He chuckled softly, as if embarrassed but not enough to hide the truth.

  Viola looked over her shoulder at him, eyes shimmering. “He made all of this… himself?”

  Torvares nodded. “He told me he wasn’t a painter, so he used different types of earth, clays, sands, even crushed stones, to create the colors. Every shade in the dress, every strand of hair, every glint of life… he shaped it with his magic and bare hands.”

  The crowd murmured in awe. Even the northerners, who rarely showed reverence to art, stood completely still. Then Torvares sighed and shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose as if recalling another problem entirely.

  “And right after showing me this masterpiece, he said…” Torvares lowered his voice, mimicking Ludger’s flat tone, “‘I’m going on a journey for a month to become the very best, like no one ever was.’”

  Viola blinked. “…The best painter?”

  Torvares barked out a laugh, loud, real, and deeply amused despite the tears still lingering in his eyes.

  “No. No, my dear girl. Not the best painter.”

  He spread his hands dramatically, humor sparkling through the grief.

  “The very best at escaping overly sentimental situations.”

  Gasps and chuckles spread through the crowd. Even Arslan covered half his face, torn between pride and exasperation.

  Torvares sighed with fond frustration. “He acted mature for an hour during the party. An hour! Then the moment he realized you would receive emotional thanks for this sculpture…”

  He gestured broadly around the garden.

  “…he vanished.”

  “What?” Viola whispered, half laughing, half offended. “He ran away?”

  “Fled,” Torvares corrected. “With the precision of a trained assassin. He said, again in that deadpan voice, ‘I refuse to be here when people start saying sentimental things.’ Then he disappeared into the night.”

  Viola pressed her fingers to her temples. “Unbelievable.”

  Torvares nodded sagely.

  “He said he wouldn’t return until he could be absolutely certain that no one, no one, would say overly sentimental thanks or praises for this work.”

  The garden erupted with laughter and disbelief. Even Yvar, still wiping tears, let out a hiccuping laugh through his sobs.

  And Viola… She stood before the sculpture of her mother, her throat tight, her heart full, and whispered under her breath.

  “…Idiot.”

  But she was smiling. A beautiful, trembling smile full of gratitude Ludger chose to run from.