Chapter 815: Thoughts
There was always a formula.
'She would say this, when I brought up the comparison between our books…'
Lucavion's mind flickered, straying further from the ballroom and the polished rot of nobility. A part of him was still watching the way the air shifted around Priscilla—still aware of the quiet threads being pulled. But another part—sharper, more amused—had already drifted into the archives of memory.
His sister had always been fond of reverse harem novels.
Not in a quiet, embarrassed way, but in the manner of someone who had built a private cathedral out of glittery covers and dog-eared pages. She devoured them between study sessions, during banquets she faked illness to skip, and in the corners of the library where even the archivists turned a blind eye.
Lucavion, on the other hand, read them out of spite.
Well—spite and curiosity.
Because every time she sneered at the male-oriented ones, with their wooden heroines and baffling proliferation of bath scenes, she would turn around and defend hers like they were sacred texts. Still, even she had her limits. Even she had once closed a book halfway through and declared, with solemn conviction: "If he calls her 'kitten' one more time, I'm setting the next volume on fire."
He'd agreed.
Some stereotypes deserved to die.
And yet, the core structure—ah, that persisted.
Lucavion leaned faintly against the marble pillar, eyes trailing the periphery of the room, but his mind continued its quiet categorization.
First: the Crown Prince. Cold, calculating, and born with some glowing ancestral magic that made everyone forget he had the emotional maturity of a grapefruit. Always dressed in gold. Always towering. Always obsessed. The kind of man who claimed he didn't care, and then murdered three people the moment someone made the heroine cry. Obsessive. Possessive. Destroyed kingdoms over jealousy. And somehow—somehow—the narrative framed that as romantic instead of pathological.
Then, the Knight. Duty-bound. Silent. Possibly raised by wolves or monks or some combination thereof. He bore his feelings like scars—always there, never named. His vocabulary consisted of "yes," "no," and an occasional grunt of emotional anguish. If he ever admitted to love, it came with a battlefield monologue and at least one near-death experience. Moral compass so unshakeable it could be used to calibrate navigation arrays.
Of course, this could also be the mage, depending on the writer's choice.
A mage that is forced to study later and later because of his lack of talents for instance, and then becoming a man of few words.
Yet, the core stayed.
A serious one would be forced to exist.
And then—
The Rogue.
Lucavion's eyes shifted, just slightly.
There he was.
Thalor Draycott.
The archetype in tailored blue silk.
Witty. Smiling. Always circling conversations like they were dance partners, speaking with too much leisure and just enough menace to make people lean in—or recoil.
A mage.
Of course he was.
Because only a mage could weaponize subtlety the way Thalor Draycott did. Words were spells. Smiles, illusions. Every gesture rehearsed. Every line perfectly timed to disarm. And yet, Lucavion had seen behind that too-perfect curtain before.
Back then, in Shattered Innocence, Thalor was one of the first male leads to appear. Introduced not with a battle or a declaration, but with a wry quip in the middle of an incantation test—just enough flair to make the reader lean closer, wondering who's that?
He had been in the same class as Elara.
He made jokes, yes. Good ones, even. The kind that felt spontaneous, clever without being cruel. He was the kind of character who'd pretend to flirt with everyone but never actually make a move, charming, irreverent, seemingly harmless.
Yet, to a different reader…
It was a little different.
Because beneath the charm, there was a sliver of something colder.
Thalor was a snake. Not the kind that struck out of fear—but the kind that studied your steps for days, waited beneath the foliage, and only uncoiled when your back was turned.
He harbored his emotions too well. There was pride, coiled and sharp behind those eyes—pride not in the public sense, but personal. Arrogance polished to the point of elegance. He never needed to be center stage, because he believed the stage would eventually revolve around him anyway.
And when he smiled?
That was when you needed to check your pockets.
In the story, his darker edge was revealed slowly. Scenes with a tinge of venom. Snide remarks that weren't quite jokes. A moment where he let someone else take the fall with just a well-timed silence. The charm didn't vanish—it twisted. Became selective. A blade offered with a bow.
Julien had been like that too. The same serpentine duality.
But Thalor's poison came in subtler vials.
Lucavion remembered the arc where Thalor's history with Priscilla had been unveiled.
At first, it was buried—whispers more than scenes. Barely a footnote in the greater plot. But the story didn't need to shout to cut deep. It knew how to scar in silence.
Thalor had been engaged to her, once.
A political match. A promise forged between Thalor's father and the Emperor—a marriage of consolidation, prestige, and old power. The kind of arrangement that passed as tradition in noble circles but reeked of possession under any real scrutiny.
And Thalor?
He played his role. Smiled. Praised her in public. Called her my Priscilla with a fondness that sounded sweet—until you realized it was always possessive, never personal.
He never asked what she wanted.
He assumed it was him.
But the story revealed it subtly—never through declarations, but through fragments in dialogue, quiet notes buried in confrontation. It wasn't Thalor who ended the engagement.
It was Priscilla.
She had walked away.
And Thalor—Thalor had not liked that.
Not openly. Not theatrically. That wasn't his style. But beneath the velvet civility, behind that regal posture, something cracked. He didn't rage. He didn't beg. He simply… turned.
And when Priscilla appeared again—changed, colder, dangerous— as one of the Corrupted.
A scene of a later time.
A title of a future when the world is about to be buried into the chaos.
Lucavion remembered the moment her corruption was first implied—when she confronted Thalor in the Tower ruins, black veins spiraling across her arms, her eyes no longer reflecting the court's daughter.
She said one line. Simple. Almost forgettable.
"Out of all, you are the one with the darkest second face."
And Thalor?
He smiled.
A beat too long.
A note too high.
The kind of smile you give when someone strikes the nerve you thought was buried.
Later, it was Elara who picked up the thread. She traced the lines through reports and offhand comments. Through the memoirs of a dismissed handmaid. Through invitation lists, conspicuously missing Priscilla's name after the fallout.
Her findings were quiet. Undeniable.
Thalor had spread rumors.
Not directly, of course. No, he was far too elegant for that. But within his circles—among the junior nobles and social architects—he planted ideas. Just questions at first. Just observations.
At first, they were whispers tucked into harmless laughter. She has always been the one to spend a lot of time alone with her tutors. Did you hear what happened after the masquerade ball? No one sees her leave the dormitories until late… wonder who's keeping her busy.
They weren't accusations. Not yet. Just idle curiosity spoken in rooms too polite to be direct. And because they weren't loud, no one challenged them. That was the trick.
No one ever questioned the source.
No one remembered it anyway.
'No one remembered it…'
It was the start of an another arc, after all.
Chapter 816: Thoughts
No one remembered it anyway.
But the victim….
And the academy?
It devoured her.
Her standing in the royal family had always been brittle—ornate, but hollow. She was the princess, but only on paper. A courtesy title. A political piece left behind by a marriage the court never acknowledged and blood they never truly claimed.
At the academy, she was disposable.
And when the rumors started festering, no one lifted a finger to defend her.
Not her professors, who once praised her discipline but now hesitated to place her name near distinction.
And certainly not the crown, which had no intention of shielding a girl it had always considered…filthy....
The combination was suffocating.
Her daily life became a silent siege—no open confrontation, no duels or punishments. Just the kind of exile that clings to silence. Students would walk by her without looking. Conversations would stop when she entered the room. Partners for projects? Suddenly hard to find. Even her meals became isolated—always a seat too far from everyone else, as though some unspoken line had been drawn.
The academy had turned into a crucible, and no one bothered to temper the flame.
She bore it longer than most would have.
Longer than she should have.
But there's only so much isolation a person can endure before silence starts whispering back.
They called her The Tragic Princess—mockingly at first, then out of habit, and finally as if it had always been her name. A noblewoman who had everything… until she didn't. A tale they would retell over wine. How promising she once was. How sad it all became.
And eventually, she broke.
Not with a scream. Not with a dramatic outburst.
She broke like glass under silk—quiet, but absolute.
The moment it happened wasn't public. It didn't need to be. But those closest to her felt it. Her laughter dulled. Her voice lost the measured grace it once wielded so carefully. The light in her gaze—that keen awareness that had once made even the professors nervous—dimmed into something colder. Detached.
And when she came back from the break?
She no longer cared to play their game.
She no longer bowed. No longer smiled politely at venom disguised as courtesy. No longer bothered to correct the lies.
And now, the scene that Lucavion seen when he looked into Priscilla…..
Lucavion didn't need to hear the words.
He didn't need to. He'd seen too many people weaponize silence.
From across the ballroom, his gaze remained fixed—not on Thalor, who moved with his usual lacquered grace—but on Priscilla.
She was standing. Still. Unmoving. But something was wrong.
Her posture was impeccable, yes. Her chin lifted, shoulders squared. The perfect court-trained silhouette.
And yet—
The tension in her hands.
The slight bend in her knees.
The flicker, brief and almost imperceptible, where her fingers twitched like she'd just dropped something and didn't realize it.
'That's not poise,' Lucavion thought. 'That's restraint. That's bracing.'
Then came the breath.
She inhaled—sharply, like she hadn't in a while.
Lucavion's eyes narrowed.
The conversation wasn't public. The noise of the ballroom smothered all but the most dramatic outbursts. There were no drawn blades, no visible spells, no glass shattering.
But something had just shifted.
[That young man,] Vitaliara's voice purred into his thoughts, low and alert. [He's doing something strange.]
Lucavion didn't move. His voice, when it came, was barely audible beneath his breath. "Strange how?"
[His mana. It isn't flaring, not externally. But it's pressed somewhere. Tightly focused. It feels… surgical.]
Lucavion's jaw ticked.
"I can't sense it."
[You wouldn't. Not unless you were inside the radius. It's folded. Bent inward.]
"On her?"
[Yes.]
Lucavion's hand brushed along the hilt of his estoc—not to draw, but to ground himself.
There were many forms of cruelty.
Some were loud. The kind that rattled chandeliers and left scorch marks on ballroom floors.
But this?
This was quieter.
This was precision.
How did he know?
Because this—this wasn't new.
He had read it before.
Thalor Draycott, the Mage Tower's golden prodigy. The clever one. The witty one. The male lead who never raised his voice but always made sure you heard him. And when he cast magic—he didn't just cast.
He composed.
Thalor was the kind of mage who didn't favor brute force. He didn't need pillars of fire or storms that tore cities apart. His magic was quiet, elegant, insidious. He folded spells the way others folded paper—layered, intricate, and devastating once they unfolded at precisely the right time.
Even early on in Shattered Innocence, the Tower Masters whispered about it—how his control bordered on unnatural. How he could bend mana inwards instead of out, turning pressure into a blade that only his target could feel. No witnesses. No residue. Just discomfort that felt like a headache—or a confession.
He didn't stun you.
He suffocated you.
And that was how he'd passed the Archmage's Trials.
He was clever.
And worse—he was creative.
That was how he'd managed to decode the legacies of Arlen Morrowind in the broken ruins. Where other mages failed to make sense of the glyphs—treating them as a language long lost—Thalor had realized they were not just inscriptions. They were following a certain order and decoded it accordingly. ((N1))
Spellwork bound to harmonic mana signatures—singing through structure, not syllables. He didn't read the legacy.
He heard it.
And that was what made him dangerous.
Not just strength.
Not just genius.
But imagination.
That was why you couldn't treat Thalor Draycott like any ordinary mage.
Because he didn't challenge magic as a scholar or a soldier.
He challenged it like an artist.
Where others hurled spells like spears or shaped them like shields, Thalor painted with mana—layered it, disguised it, let it whisper into the bones of his target until they crumbled without knowing why. If you didn't understand the shape of your own mind, you wouldn't even know he was there. That was how he won.
And right now—watching Priscilla—Lucavion could tell.
Something was wrong again.
Her spine was too still. Her eyes weren't focused. Not on Thalor. Not on anything. Like her body remained, but her attention had been siphoned somewhere just beyond reach.
It was subtle.
Delicate.
Dangerous.
[Can't you feel the energy in the air around her? Especially around her head?]
Vitaliara's voice brushed his mind, sharper now, edged with something more serious than before.
"Energy?" Lucavion murmured, still watching. "No... it's too thin. He's not flaring."
[Not outwardly. But it's there. The spell's compression leaves an imprint—it swirls tighter the longer he holds it. Look around her scalp, behind the ears, crown of the head. The pressure's pooling there.]
Lucavion's gaze narrowed, the instinct to see rising with his focus, but still—he felt nothing.
"I can't detect it."
[Then don't detect it.] Her voice grew firmer, pulling him inward. [Use your own property. Your Flame of Vitality—it's not just fuel. It's perception. Mana that comes from you interacts with the world as you are. It reads, it breathes, it interprets.]
"I'm not trained in that kind of analysis," he muttered. "It's unstable, at best."
[And? That's not an excuse.] Her tone flicked with a biting warmth. [Stop trying to match his approach. Burn with yours.]
He closed his eyes.
Let the ambient noise fall away. The music, the gossip, the scent of wine and blooming crystalroot.
He reached inward, toward the coals of that strange, volatile force curled in his chest.
He harnessed his [Flame of Equinox], but rather embracing the [Flames of Vitality]. The white color flared brightly in his chest.
It stirred—not warmly, not gently—but like an eye opening beneath his ribs.
He didn't try to force it. Didn't mold it like elementalists were taught.
He just let it see.
And in that moment—he did.
He sensed a ripple.
Chapter 817: Ion
It was a ripple.
The world blinked open not in color, but in motion.
Not vision—pulse.
And there, surrounding Priscilla's head—Lucavion saw it. A distortion. Like a lens bent too tightly around the temples. A spiral of delicate pressure, almost woven. The energy wasn't crackling. It wasn't aggressive.
It was symphonic.
A spell with form and rhythm and compression so precise it barely left a shimmer. But it was there.
"Got it," he said quietly.
Vitaliara stilled.
[You saw it.]
"Yes."
Vitaliara went still.
There was no tension—just a long pause. A silence shaped not by uncertainty, but by recognition.
Then, slowly, she turned her gaze toward him, meeting his eyes through that strange tether only they shared.
And sighed.
[Sometimes I forget the monstrosity you are.]
Lucavion quirked a brow. "Charming."
[Don't flatter yourself.] Her tone was dry, but not cold. [It shouldn't have been possible. Not with a four-star core. Not without attunement. Most people wouldn't even feel the ripple without the ambient pulse of a five-star domain to amplify it.]
"I'm not most people."
[No. You're not.]
Her gaze lingered a heartbeat longer, then drifted to his chest—where the afterglow of the [Flame of Equinox] still pulsed faintly beneath his ribs. Not in violence, but in rhythm. Calm. Steady. White-gold heat that breathed with life and will.
That was the core he wielded now. A flame of vitality—burning clean, burning true.
But it wasn't the only one.
[Of course,] she continued, [you've already brushed the threshold.]
"To the fifth star."
[Not a long time ago.] Her voice gentled. [Before the injury.]
The [Devourer of Stars].
Even now, bound and buried, it stirred beneath his skin like a second pulse. Distant. Dormant.
But not forgotten.
It had been a five-star core from the moment it formed. A core shaped by void and gravity and impossible depth. It devoured energy not to consume—but to understand.
And though it was sealed now, the instinct remained.
The ability to read, to reach, to perceive magic not by color or sound—but by what it meant.
That was what let him see Thalor's spell now. Not because of power.
Because of resonance.
Because even folded, even masked, the precision of Thalor's spell carried intent—and Lucavion had always been able to hear intent when it screamed, even if the world called it silence.
He opened his eyes fully now, the flicker of heat fading back to calm.
"You were right," he murmured. "It's not about force. It's about listening."
Lucavion kept his gaze steady.
The shimmer—no, the ripple—was still there.
Faint. Delicate. More suggestion than presence. Like the distortion left behind when heat dances above stone, or the breath of wind through threads too fine to see.
But it was real.
It wasn't just spellcraft. Not in the conventional sense. Not runes or invocation or the layering of structured magic he'd studied in the Tower and broken down in duels. This wasn't woven through language or hand-signs. There was no glyph, no anchor, no chorus of surrounding mana.
It was refined. Silent. Pure.
A compression of intent, folded into a resonance so specific that it slipped under traditional detection entirely.
Lucavion tilted his head slightly, studying the way the ripple twisted. It wasn't flaring. It wasn't defensive. It hovered around Priscilla's temples and jawline with a kind of pressure he could only describe as directional—not just wrapping her, but coaxing her internal state downward.
It wasn't breaking her.
It was persuading her to bend.
'These ripples…' he thought.
They were rhythmic, like sound—no, like frequency. A tone without audio. Vibration bent so finely it passed through emotional states instead of bone.
He frowned.
It didn't match any spellcraft he'd studied. Not ritual. Not chaos. Not naturalist ether-binding. The mana behaved differently here. Almost molecular.
And then—somewhere deep in memory—a picture flashed in his mind.
A classroom.
Dimly lit. The projector slightly off-center. Chalk dust clinging to the corners of a slate board.
And on it—sketched in uneven lines—a diagram.
He didn't remember the lecture. Didn't remember the teacher.
But the image?
That stuck.
An atom—crudely drawn, little circles for electrons. A caption beneath it, awkward and underlined twice in red marker.
Ionization.
That was it.
He didn't remember what ions actually were—something about atoms losing electrons? Or gaining them?
It had been a long time after all.
But the word…
It rang now.
Not for its definition.
For its shape.
Because that ripple? That compression?
It felt like something was being taken.
Not broken. Not torn. Removed.
Ionization.
The word pulsed through his memory again—this time, not from the classroom, but from the story.
From Shattered Innocence.
Lucavion's eyes narrowed.
Yes. That was where it returned with weight.
Elara. The inquisitive one. The protagonist who knew how to dig beneath silk and poison. She had found it while piecing together Thalor's inconsistencies—when she started tracing the arcane, or magical, whatever you want to call, prints he left behind on the people he spoke to, the ones who never seemed quite the same afterward.
There had been a moment—just a passing line, half-buried in her notebook as she cross-referenced spell theory with the Mage Tower's rather new publishes.
"Ionization."
Lucavion remembered reading that and frowning.
Now he understood why.
Thalor wasn't breaking Priscilla. He was neutralizing her. Sapping her resistance one layer at a time—until she didn't have enough left to oppose him. Like watching a star fade, not because it exploded—but because someone siphoned the light.
"If that's the case…" he whispered. "This might be how he affects their minds."
It wasn't mind control—not in the direct, traceable sense. It was reconstruction. Subtle. Layered. Over time. Turning resistance into compliance not through domination…
…but depletion.
He looked at Priscilla again.
Her expression was poised, perfect. But only at first glance.
There was something too still about it. Not composed—suspended. Like she'd been caught mid-motion and frozen there. Like her thoughts were just slightly off-rhythm from her body.
Her mouth didn't twitch.
Her breath didn't sync.
'Well, now that I have identified it, I guess I should let our princess breathe a little, shouldn't I?'
Lucavion exhaled slowly, fingers brushing once more along the silver-thread seam of his coat.
This had gone on long enough.
He didn't need to disrupt the room. Didn't need to challenge Thalor with a formal call or an invocation that would draw every noble's gaze.
That wasn't how you handled snakes like this.
Not in their den.
Not when they were wrapped so tightly around their prey.
Lucavion moved through the crowd like a shadow through candlelight—easy, quiet, deliberate. He didn't stride. That would draw attention. He didn't creep. That would give Thalor the satisfaction of subtlety.
He simply drifted, veering slightly off the path of polite social navigation, the way only nobles with confidence and too much lineage could.
The moment was delicate—balanced on the fine string between music and murmur, crystal glasses lifted mid-toast, no one expecting impact.
And then—
He stumbled.
Just slightly.
A falter in step. A foot that slid half a beat off rhythm. A shoulder that tilted at just the wrong angle.
He collided with Thalor.
Not forcefully. Not clumsily.
Just enough.
The sound of the impact was muted—fabric brushing against silk, a faint clink of cuffs. Enough to interrupt the South's Warden mid-turn. Enough to make him shift, to catch his breath, to notice.
Lucavion blinked once.
Then straightened.
And smiled.
"Ahem…" he said, lifting one hand in theatrical apology. "My hand slipped."
Chapter 818: A friendly match
Lucavion's gaze drifted between the two of them—Thalor, poised like a statue carved by an artist who had only ever seen snakes, and Rowen, a blade sheathed in diplomacy but no less sharp for it.
Thalor was smiling.
Of course he was.
That particular brand of smile—the one that glowed with gracious elegance while reeking of orchestration—was painted across his face like lacquer. Calm. Pleasant. Triumphant.
As if this had all gone exactly as he wanted.
Lucavion didn't need confirmation.
He could feel it.
From the moment Thalor approached Priscilla, Lucavion had sensed the quiet gears turning behind that genteel expression. The man wasn't the type to make a scene without a script. Every word, every pause, every breath measured. Even the way he stepped into her space—it had purpose. Not just to remind her of a past. But to push something into motion.
'Did I expect this?' Lucavion thought, jaw tightening. 'No. Not exactly. I didn't think he'd stretch this far in public.'
But now that it was unfolding?
It made perfect sense.
This wasn't about the duel. Not directly.
This was about control. About making a stage, then casting Lucavion onto it as the unpredictable variable—a threat cloaked in mystery, forced to reveal himself under noble scrutiny. Thalor had likely prepared multiple outcomes. Victory. Scandal. Maybe both. And with Rowen stepping in as the "volunteer," the story now had weight. Prestige. A seal of legitimacy.
Thalor hadn't just baited Lucavion into a fight.
He'd built a stage that required Lucavion to respond.
Lucavion didn't move. Didn't blink.
He simply met Rowen's gaze—quiet, sharp, knowing.
He had expected this.
No, more than that.
He had earned this.
From the moment he cracked Lucien's composure, from the instant the prince's perfectly curated façade faltered under the weight of a whisper and a smirk—Rowen had been ready to strike.
Lucavion saw it then. In the twitch of knuckles. The tightening jaw. The slight pivot of weight, barely visible beneath the cloak of decorum. Not rage. Not indignation.
Resolve.
The kind that comes only when a blade has already been half-drawn in the heart.
He hadn't done it. Not then. Because Priscilla stepped in, because the rules of the hall still held, if only by a thread.
But that didn't erase the will.
It never does.
Lucavion knew that truth intimately.
Because he, too, carried a sword.
And there's something that happens—something primal—when a warrior feels the fight stir.
It doesn't just vanish when the moment is passed.
It lingers.
Hums.
'That's the problem with restraint,' Lucavion mused, eyes narrowing faintly. 'It sharpens the edge.'
Rowen was composed. Impeccable. The Empire's sword wrapped in civility. But Lucavion saw it now—the fire behind the frost.
He wanted this.
Not for sport. Not for spectacle.
For clarity.
'He sees me as a threat now,' Lucavion thought. 'Not because of what I said. But because Lucien bled for it.'
And that made Lucavion dangerous in a way Rowen couldn't ignore.
The weight of his stare wasn't curiosity. It was purpose.
This wasn't a duel of pride.
It was a decision.
Rowen had chosen to confront what the court was now whispering, what Thalor had crafted with velvet and lace: that Lucavion was not just different.
He was uncontrolled.
'So you'll face me on the floor,' Lucavion thought, the faintest flicker of a grin pulling at his lips,
'Of course,' Lucavion mused, watching the tension behind Rowen's eyes congeal into quiet certainty. 'This isn't about honor. Not really.'
It was about restoration.
About rewriting what had just happened.
'If I bleed here—even a little—that recording, those looks, the whispers about Lucien's mask cracking… they'll all be footnotes. That's the strategy.'
He could see it clearly now.
'They want a cleaner headline.'
Lucavion, the anomaly, put in his place by Rowen Drayke—Arcanis' loyal sword. The son of the Knight Commander. A name with steel in its bones and duty in its breath.
It would be perfect.
If he let it happen.
'Heh…'
A soft, almost amused exhale slipped from Lucavion as his gaze dropped—not in submission, but in observation.
Rowen Drayke.
The dutiful son of a legend.
In the novel, Rowen was barely a shadow. A supporting wall in the background of nobility's grand design. He wasn't the male lead. He wasn't even a rival.
He was a barrier.
Someone who opposed Elara not out of malice, but out of conviction. Her common birth was a blight to him—a breach of sacred order. In another world, in another genre, he might have been sympathetic. Even admirable.
But here?
He was just another fixed point.
'Your role wasn't meant to last,' Lucavion thought, lips curling faintly. 'Not in the story I read. You existed to disapprove. To object. Then to vanish.'
In a way, Rowen was someone who added the spice to the book, then his role was over.
And vanish he had.
Minimal screen time. Fewer shared classes. A swordsman trained in discipline, in battlefield command, relegated to corners of the plot.
But now?
Now, he was stepping forward. Into light. Into relevance.
'Because Lucien stumbled,' Lucavion realized. 'And someone had to lift the banner.'
And that someone would be Rowen.
Lucavion's thoughts were still coiled tight in his chest, sharpened by the weight of understanding. It wasn't just the court that worked in schemes and shadows—no, even those who draped themselves in steel and oaths had their own choreography. Especially knights. Especially heirs to legacies.
'Knight Commander or whatever shit—' he mused darkly, 'they're all carved from the same rotten honorwood. Just better polished.'
There was nothing knightly about bastards like this. Just rituals. Just ceremony. Just the illusion of virtue to gild the blades they raised for politics, not people.
And then—*
A sound broke the tension.
Clap.
It wasn't loud.
But it was surgical.
Like glass tapping glass in a silent library.
Thalor Draycott, of course.
Lucavion's gaze flicked to him at once.
The bastard was clapping. Just twice. Slow, precise, performative.
And smiling.
Always smiling.
"Oh, how splendid," Thalor said, his voice velvet and daggers. "There is indeed no one who could represent our side better than the son of the Knight Commander himself. The embodiment of virtue, discipline, and Empire-bound decorum."
He turned, the movement fluid—more dancer than duelist—and let his eyes sweep across the hall. Not for dramatics. For effect. Always effect.
"Truly," he continued, now facing the Lorian delegation, "how nice."
The words were polished.
But the edge beneath them?
Pure teeth.
And then, Thalor's gaze landed precisely where he wanted it.
On Prince Adrian.
His tone, somehow both warm and chilling, rang through the hall like a question dipped in silk.
"Then, Prince Adrian…" Thalor said, tilting his head just slightly, a polite predator in noble trappings. "What do you think of our little competition?"
Chapter 819: Customs ?
Thalor's applause faded into the hush—a signal perfectly timed, almost orchestrated. Every eye flicked to Rowen Drayke, standing firm beside the mage, and then to the Lorian delegation at the far end of the hall.
Rowen's grip stayed loose once more—steady, resolute. The son of the Knight Commander had volunteered, and the court had accepted. Now all that remained was the final piece.
Thalor's gaze swept across the Lorian students before settling on their leader: Prince Adrian, tall and composed, every inch royalty. Not an unfamiliar name in diplomatic circles—his presence here underscored the Empire's intent.
He inclined his head toward Adrian, courteous but precise.
"Prince Adrian," Thalor said, voice even, carrying a silent challenge. "What do you think of our little competition?"
Silence rippled like static, the air tense with unspoken meaning. All that remained was the response.
Adrian stepped forward—an easy movement that spoke of confidence nurtured by expectation, but tinged with diplomacy. He paused just before reaching the center, where Lucavion, Lucien, Rowen, and Thalor now formed a silent quadrangle of power.
The room leaned in; the wine glasses caught the chandelier light.
Adrian's voice rang out: smooth, measured, acknowledging yet not yielding.
"This… is a fine proposal."
He paused deliberately, letting the weight of his words settle.
Thalor's smile never cracked, but inwardly he exhaled a breath touched with amusement.
Of course you'll say that.
Adrian's measured agreement was predictable—inevitable, even. That was the brilliance of how Thalor had framed it. This wasn't a duel born of pride or challenge—it was cloaked in courtesy, dipped in the wine of celebration and unity. Refusing it would be akin to rejecting Arcanis' hospitality.
And a prince of Loria couldn't afford that.
Not here. Not now.
Not when the entire room had been tilted toward diplomacy.
This was the second reason Thalor had spun the event into being. The first was, of course, Lucavion—a variable he needed visible, tested, contained. But the second?
Information.
They knew little of the foreign envoy. No accurate read on their training, their strengths, their internal hierarchy. Arcanis while fighting Loria in the field directly, the youngsters didn't have any position in neither side.
And it was also Loria who surrendered first. It was all theory and whispers. And now?
Now he had them in the open. In front of the court. In his narrative.
Got you.
Thalor watched Adrian closely, sipping the last of his wine. Polite. Regal. Careful.
Still deciding how to move.
Then Adrian stepped forward again, his expression unchanged but his posture more pronounced—subtle assertion.
"They will participate, of course," he said. The words were clear, calm. No hesitation.
But then, Adrian added with a small, diplomatic smile, "Though I wonder if sending the heir to the Knight Commander alone might not appear… excessive."
There it was.
A countermove. Clever. Not aggressive—measured.
Adrian's smile remained pleasant, but his gaze was sharp.
"After all," he continued, "this is to warm the atmosphere, yes? A spirited exchange among students."
He tilted his head slightly.
"Having one side represented by such a figure might risk turning the evening into something a little too… formal. Wouldn't you agree?"
Adrian's smile didn't falter as he stepped forward again, his tone still gracious, but with a rhythm now—measured, precise. Like a speech long-practiced but delivered with offhand elegance.
"Of course, we are deeply grateful for the hospitality we've received since our arrival," he said, his voice reaching the corners of the hall without raising. "The Arcanis Empire is… known, after all, for its refinement. Its formality. Its seriousness."
That last word lingered—delicately balanced between compliment and commentary.
He continued before Thalor could interject, as if sensing the mage's breath draw for a reply.
"We have noticed," Adrian said, gaze sweeping the assembled nobles, "that your people approach even the smallest gesture with ceremony. It's admirable."
A pause. Then—
"But in Lorian, we are taught that excessive formality can often… hinder the essence of things. That a true exchange—of skill, of camaraderie—need not be dressed in too much velvet."
Several nobles bristled slightly at the wording, though no one spoke.
Adrian's hands folded loosely behind his back. His posture never broke.
"So, with your permission, we'd like to participate in this contest in a way that reflects our customs. Less pageantry. More simplicity."
He gave a nod, calm and final.
"We hope the students of Arcanis won't mind."
All eyes turned to Thalor.
He could have refused, technically. Could have leaned into the traditions, the expectations. Could have demanded uniformity under the banner of 'fairness.'
But to do so now, after Adrian's words, would reek of insecurity.
And worse?
It would make him seem… ungracious.
Thalor's smile remained—cool and polished.
"Of course," he said with a nod. "Feel free to proceed as you see fit."
This guy is good.
The thought slid across Thalor's mind like silk on a blade.
Prince Adrian hadn't just countered—he'd restructured the entire tone of the event, draping it in the light veil of "cultural difference." A clever pivot. Disarming. One even Thalor had to admire.
He hadn't expected such an elegant use of diplomacy-as-deflection. A custom, of all things. A phrase that could excuse any breach, any deviation, while leaving no room for rebuke. It was clean. Humble, even. And yet—it had teeth.
Still.
Thalor didn't flinch.
Because in the grand scheme, this changed very little.
Even if I don't pull the measure I wanted from the Lorian envoy…
His gaze flicked casually back to Lucavion—silent, unreadable, still surrounded by the tension that refused to dissipate.
The cause has already been set. Lucavion and Rowen. That's the real purpose here.
Everything else—the formality, the foreign customs, the exchange of pleasantries and veiled jabs—was garnish.
The meat was the duel.
Thalor took another sip of wine, letting it coat his tongue before swallowing with a pleasant hum.
Yes.
Let Adrian pretend to soften the stage.
Let the audience nod in appreciation of foreign humility.
It won't matter once the blades are drawn.
Thalor's gaze slid back to Lucavion, slow and deliberate. The court had shifted, the roles cast, and now the spotlight hovered over the quiet anomaly standing far too calmly for someone about to face one of the Empire's two blades.
He smiled. Not wide. Not cruel. Just enough to show interest.
"Let's see how interesting you really are."
Lucavion remained unreadable. The flicker of emotion in his eyes too brief, too polished to catch clearly. He didn't posture. Didn't flinch. It was precisely that composure that made him dangerous.
And Rowen?
Thalor spared him a glance.
Rowen Drayke. Of the Drayke lineage. He was not merely a knight—he was a standard. One of the few names whispered alongside Varen Drakov when discussing the next era's elite swordsmen. Cold where Varen was fire. Methodical where Varen was untamed.
Two sons of two war-forged bloodlines.
And Lucavion was now their measure.
Heh… this will be one for the records.
Thalor brought his hands together in a polite clap—precise, elegant, and just loud enough to draw attention again.
"Let us prepare the grounds, then," he said, voice cutting through the atmosphere like a note of orchestration. "We wouldn't want such a display to go to waste beneath chandeliers and velvet."
With a slight tilt of his head, he gestured toward a pair of attendants waiting along the edge of the ballroom. Their eyes sharpened at once, moving quickly.
"Clear the atrium," he instructed, his voice soft but unarguable. "We'll host the match outside. Proper footing. Proper space."
The staff bowed and scattered, murmuring to others who began lifting barriers, parting the noble crowd, and preparing the way.
The ballroom shifted again—this time with anticipation. Excitement began threading its way through hushed tones and rustling silks.
Something real was about to happen.
And Thalor?
He watched Lucavion.
Still silent. Still untouched.
Let's see how long that composure holds when steel starts singing.
Chapter 820: Discarding one
The ballroom glittered like a polished lie.
Gilded chandeliers dripped with mana-light, refracting soft hues of opalescent blue and gold across the marble floor. Laughter floated on the air like perfume—calculated, effortless, weightless. Nobles swept past in layers of silks and velvets, their movements precise, their smiles sharpened into elegance. The string quartet at the far end played a dulcet arrangement designed to soothe rather than stir.
And in the center of it all stood Isolde Valoria.
Or perhaps—Isolde Valoria Lorian. The name had not yet been inked into law, but it hung around her like a crown already fitted, waiting for ceremony to catch up with truth.
She was draped in silver, her gown sleek and understated, chosen to whisper wealth rather than shout it. Her pale hair, pinned in an intricate braid, shimmered like starlight under the chandeliers. Her posture was impeccable. Her smile—perfect.
The very image of a woman who had won.
She had everything.
The title. The bloodline. The betrothal to the future emperor of the Lorian Empire. Her enemies—dead or forgotten. Her rivals—bought, exiled, or made irrelevant.
And yet.
Her fingers curled tighter around the stem of her glass, the chilled wine inside untouched.
There was something in her chest. Not pain. Not anger. Not even dread.
But something.
A hollowness. A murmur.
It had been years since she'd felt anything she couldn't predict, couldn't weaponize. Years since a single glance, a name, a face had triggered something as fragile and stupid as—
Emotion.
Not power. Not calculation. But something softer. Unbidden.
It curled around her ribs like smoke, whispering things she didn't have time to entertain.
Why was that the case?
Why, when everything glittered—when every smile bent for her, every door opened before she asked—did her heart carry this strange, insistent disquiet?
It didn't make sense.
Not for her.
Not for Isolde Valoria Lorian, future empress of the Empire, duchess of the Valoria line, architect of silence, mistress of consequence.
And yet…
She hadn't been sleeping well.
Not since Arcania.
That cursed city of masks.
It had started the moment they arrived in the capital, weeks before the official term of the Academy began. A matter of protocol, of course—they had brought gifts, delivered speeches, kissed the hands of influential instructors, let their presence be known like good nobles do.
They had been greeted with fanfare.
They had been settled in private estate quarters reserved only for royal bloodlines.
And for a while, everything had unfolded just as she had calculated.
Until the news came.
A change in the roster. A shift in policy. Something called "an opening of the gates."
She'd skimmed the report the first time. Then read it again.
Then read it slowly.
This year, for the first time in its blood-drenched, lineage-locked history, the Arcanis Imperial Academy had allowed a new category of entrants.
Commoners.
Non-nobles. Mage-borns and bastards, orphans and prodigies. People who had clawed their way into the candidate pool not through birthright, but through merit.
By decree of the Headmaster and the Magic Council.
As a symbol of progress. Of peace.
Of unity.
This in itself wasn't what unsettled her.
Let the Empire pretend at unity. Let the Academy throw open its gilded gates to commoners and martyrs alike. Let the poor believe they had a seat at the table, so long as she held the knife beside the plates.
She hadn't cared.
Not until the name.
It was late evening when the preliminary rankings were posted. A simple parchment, enchanted to hover in the air outside the central hall. Most nobles hadn't even bothered to look. Isolde had, out of habit—out of hunger.
And there it was.
First-ranked among the Commoner Entrance Examination: Lucavion.
That name.
Her breath had caught—not with surprise, not at first. She had stared at it like one stares at a ghost with a familiar face and a knife already in hand.
A name she had erased long ago.
A name she had discarded.
She had removed him with precision. Had watched the fire, heard the silence. Had stitched his absence into her narrative like a wound she refused to acknowledge.
He was gone.
He was supposed to be gone.
And yet—
There it was.
Lucavion.
She had tried, briefly, to reason. To rationalize. It could be another. A coincidence. A child named after a martyr, perhaps. A false name taken to impress. A mimic.
But the portraits arrived a few days later—standard orientation files distributed to the faculty, leaked to her by a loyal curator with trembling fingers and eyes that never met hers.
She had studied them in the privacy of her receiving room, the mana lanterns dimmed to dusk-light.
It had been more than five years.
He had changed.
The boy she remembered—infuriating in a rather timid way, too soft for his own good—had been forged into something else. Something quieter. Sharper. The young man that stared back at her from the portrait had a stillness to him, a precision she didn't remember ever seeing.
He wore a plain uniform, his posture correct but not stiff. His hair was darker than she recalled, falling in rough, swept-back waves. His features had matured—no longer soft with youth, but defined by something far less forgiving than time.
She stared at the image, searching for cracks. For some sign that this was not him. That this was some strange fluke of fate—a second Lucavion, birthed from coincidence.
Maybe the portraits didn't do him justice, she had thought. The angles were wrong. The light too flat. The eyes distant.
Even Adrian, when shown the file in passing, had scoffed.
"There's no way," he had said, with the dismissive certainty of royalty. "That guy didn't even Awaken even after 4-years passed, remember? Barely made it through the standard rites. You know him the best, don't you, Isolde?"
He had waved a hand, elegant and final. "And now he's a peak 4-star Awakener? Please. It must be someone else."
And for a moment—a single moment—she had almost believed it.
Until the banquet.
Until the double doors opened to welcome the commoner students—an orchestrated gesture of tolerance, all eyes upon them as they stepped into the gilded lion's den.
Silks turned. Whispers passed like thin wind through glass.
Isolde's wine glass was already forgotten on the edge of the table, untouched.
She didn't hear the music anymore.
She didn't register the blur of muted conversation around her.
Because her eyes had found him.
And his had already found her.
Black. Still. Watching.
There were many different emotions in those eyes.
She could tell. She could tell that, those eyes contained emotions that she knew very well, yet it didn't contain an emotion that they should have had.
His eyes were not surprised.
Just present.
Like he'd never left.
Like he'd known she would be here.
And in that frozen breath between recognition and the storm, she knew.
It was him.
Lucavion.
In a split second, she remembered many things of the past.
The memories of someone that she had discarded as a piece.
The face had changed. The name had been doubted. But those eyes…
One thing about him was them….
Those eyes wouldn't lie.
Not to her.
Not now.
Not ever.
Chapter 821: My man
The banquet had all the trappings of grace—crystal glasses catching chandelier light, symphonies drifting through charmed instruments, nobles smiling with teeth that hid daggers—but Jesse could feel it beneath it all.
Tension.
It hung like a storm just above the silver-polished plates. Not loud. Not spoken. But palpable.
And it started before the first toast.
The seating arrangements had been subtle—just a few inches lower, a few degrees off-center. The Lorian envoy was not seated at the same tier as the native nobles. They were not placed as guests of honor. They were not even included in the central rings of authority.
They were sidelined.
Deliberately.
And every single one of them knew it.
Adrian Vale's jaw had not relaxed once since they were seated. His fingers remained folded with too much force on the table, the tension creeping down his arms like steel cords beneath the fabric of his ceremonial coat.
Isolde, seated beside him, smiled.
Not softly. Not kindly.
Strategically.
And when the murmurs began—those artfully disguised barbs, the accidental omissions of titles, the waitstaff "confused" about which wine was appropriate for "foreign guests"—Adrian leaned in slightly.
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't curse.
But Jesse caught the words anyway.
"They want us to crawl?"
His tone was quiet, low, and sharp.
Isolde's response was gentle. Delicate, like her fingers trailing across the rim of her untouched wine glass.
"They want us to bend first."
Adrian looked at her. Not with tenderness—but with calculation.
"And if we don't?"
"Then they'll flinch first," Isolde said, her lavender eyes never losing that composed stillness. "Let them. If they disrespect us, let them do it in full view of the court. And let the ones watching decide who came to beg."
Adrian didn't reply. But the silence was agreement enough.
And so, they stayed.
The Lorian students remained in place. Regal. Perfect. Untouched.
Unmoving.
No one from their side crossed the hall.
And to Jesse?
It was unbearable.
Her hands itched. Her boots twitched beneath the tablecloth. Her eyes—sharp as blades, still locked on Lucavion at the far end of the banquet—burned with the fury of restraint.
She wasn't someone who cared about noble pride. Not really. Not like Adrian or Isolde. She didn't care about courtly standoffs or political theatre.
She wanted to move.
She wanted to go to him.
But they were under order.
No one broke ranks.
Not now.
So she sat. Perfect posture, as trained. Her face unreadable, as expected.
But her mind?
Her mind was screaming.
Because he was there.
He was right there.
And she couldn't move.
Couldn't approach.
Couldn't even call his name without shattering the delicate cold war that was being played between the two Empires' students.
And Jesse—Jesse had never hated ceremony more in her entire life.
Her fork pressed too hard into the edge of her plate.
The wine burned too bitter down her throat.
And every glance across the table at Adrian's rigid expression, or Isolde's calm smile, made her want to throw decorum out the goddamned window.
Because she didn't care who came to beg.
She didn't want to wait until they decided the moment.
She wanted to go to him now.
To look him in the eye and ask the questions that had been caged in her for years.
But she couldn't.
Not yet.
So she swallowed the storm building in her chest.
And sat there in silence.
Watching.
Waiting.
Counting down the seconds until someone gave her a reason—any reason—to stand.
Yet, she couldn't expect that the banquet would change quickly.
On the Lorian side, the tension hadn't eased.
Not even after the flutes played their final notes. Not after the third course was cleared or the nobles' laughter grew a shade too loud, too performative.
Jesse hadn't moved.
Not a hair.
Not a breath she didn't measure first.
Her gaze—still locked on Lucavion—sharpened when a noble from Arcanis Empire approached him with that polished arrogance he always wore like a borrowed title.
And Lucavion?
He didn't blink.
Didn't flinch.
He smiled.
In a way she remembered that smile.
The one she remembered from the barracks, from the bloodied tents when her morale was ash and hope had teeth. That crooked, irreverent smirk he wore when telling her that yes, their commanding officer was a bastard, but no, that didn't mean they had to follow his orders like fools. That grin that had made even her want to believe—just for a second—that everything could still be turned on its head.
And now?
That same boy sat unmoving as nobility itself tried to pin him to the marble floor. As accusations sharpened around him like knives and the very weight of imperial hierarchy bore down with all its centuries.
He smirked anyway.
He raised his glass with the leisure of someone reading poetry.
And then—he opened his mouth.
And Jesse remembered why she'd once been afraid of him.
Not because of his strength.
But because of what he did with it.
Lucavion didn't raise his voice. He didn't shout. He dissected them.
One word at a time.
Her fingers clenched in her lap as he exposed the truth, not as a rebel, but as a craftsman. Calm. Collected. Unapologetic.
'He didn't change,' she thought. 'Not where it matters.'
And as Reynard faltered—visibly, devastatingly—Jesse didn't feel triumph.
She felt that same slow-blooming ache that had haunted her since he'd left.
Because gods, he still moved like he was untouched.
Still stood as if the system was beneath analysis, not allegiance.
And then—
The Crown Prince entered.
Like a shadow dragged in on velvet.
The air changed. The hall remembered its place.
But Lucavion?
Lucavion applauded him.
With the same smile Jesse had seen him wear right after detonating an enemy supply line. With the same irreverence he'd used to mock military bureaucracy and win the hearts of a dozen hardened soldiers.
He clapped. He praised him.
Mockery wrapped in charm. Heresy laced with theater.
And Jesse nearly stood.
Her boots scuffed the floor.
Because she could see it—every step, every word—Lucavion was dragging royalty into his rhythm.
And then he said it.
"Dear Lucien."
No title. No reverence.
Just name.
And Jesse exhaled sharply through her nose, fists tightening beneath the tablecloth.
Because she knew what came next.
Lucavion never dropped the blade unless he knew it would land.
And gods help them—
He had witnesses.
A recording.
A godsforsaken projection of the entire event.
Proof.
Jesse didn't even hear the crowd's gasps.
Didn't register the shifting nobles, the sputtering outrage, the weight of history trembling on its knees.
She saw him.
Smiling.
Calm.
Untouched.
And she remembered.
The boy who once carried her out of a collapsing tunnel with three cracked ribs and called it "a light jog."
The man who once burned through protocol just to keep a promise to a dying scout.
The smirk was the same.
The sarcasm was the same.
And that fire—that unyielding defiance wrapped in elegance—
That was Lucavion.
And Jesse—
'That is my man…'
Chapter 822: My man (2)
The fallout came not like fire—but frost.
Lucavion stood tall at the epicenter of a shattered calm, the projection sphere now dim in his hand like a finished performance. The nobles didn't scream. They didn't argue.
They simply stepped back.
Quietly.
Collectively.
Like dancers re-choreographing their positions.
The air didn't buzz with outrage—it withdrew, peeled itself away from him, cautious, controlled. As if proximity to Lucavion might brand them with complicity. As if the truth he'd just unleashed was more dangerous than the lie they'd been ready to clap for.
And then—
Adrian spoke.
Not loudly.
But his voice carried the authority of decision.
"No one from Lorian will approach him," he said. "Not tonight."
Jesse didn't look at him.
She didn't need to.
She could feel Isolde's gaze beside him—calm, composed, the strategist already calculating the fallout, already weighing loyalty against longevity.
"Make sure to not make a mistake," Isolde said, her tone silk-clad steel. "Right?"
Jesse didn't speak.
Didn't argue.
She simply looked forward—past the nobles, past the rising din of polite conversation trying to reassemble the illusion of peace—toward him.
Lucavion stood alone now.
Not visibly wounded. Not faltering.
Just separate.
The space around him was no longer social—it was sacred. Dangerous. Marked by the sheer audacity of having spoken aloud what others only whispered in locked rooms.
And Jesse?
She stayed seated.
Because she had to.
Because Adrian was right. Because Isolde was precise.
Because to move now would cost more than just her standing.
But gods, she wanted to.
She could feel it—beneath her ribcage, that storm still screaming, still pacing. Her fingers were still curled too tight around her wineglass. Her eyes refused to stray.
He didn't look toward her.
Of course he didn't.
That wasn't his way.
Lucavion didn't seek comfort. He didn't reach for lifelines.
He burned alone.
Always had.
Always would.
Unless—
And then—
The opportunity came.
Not as a crack—but a call.
A guy's voice swept across the banquet like silk laced with iron, and the court shifted once again—this time not in fear, but in expectation.
His name appeared to be Thalor Draycott.
A duel. A performance. A measured clash wrapped in civility.
But Jesse saw through it.
So did Lucavion. His smile hadn't changed.
Still calm. Still sardonic. Still that quiet refusal to bend.
And now—Rowen Drayke had stepped forward, his intent sharp as a blade yet to be drawn. The challenge was sealed. Thalor had set the board. Now Adrian had to move.
Jesse remained still—but not cold.
She watched Adrian carefully as he stepped to the center, his poise never faltering, even under the weight of hundreds of watching eyes.
"This is a fine proposal," he said. Smooth. Diplomatic. Too clean to be anything but calculated.
And then—
He shifted it.
Redrew the game under the guise of culture, of Lorian formality—or rather, the lack of it. He dressed their defiance as simplicity, as custom. A masterstroke in misdirection.
But Jesse knew Adrian well enough to see it:
He wasn't retreating.
He was choosing.
And when he turned back to the Lorian envoy—their side—and let his gaze pass across them like a sovereign appraising the ranks, Jesse already knew.
"Jesse," Adrian said.
Not loudly.
Not kindly.
Just clearly.
Isolde's head turned sharply, but she didn't speak. Not right away. Her glance was sharp, calculating.
Jesse stood.
Not because she was eager.
Not because she had anything to prove.
But because she knew why he'd chosen her.
In Lorian, there was a custom.
When entering the foreign courts, when the Empire's name needed defending without igniting full confrontation—one did not send their finest heir or their most diplomatic voice.
They sent the one who had bled for the Empire.
A lower-ranked noble. Proven on the battlefield. One who could not be accused of speaking above their station—yet whose reputation carried the weight of survival.
And in this banquet of silk and politics, Jesse was the ghost in armor.
Everyone knew her.
Not from salons or soirées.
But from war.
Adrian's voice cut through the murmur of approval and side-glances.
"She will represent us," he said, his tone regal but absolute. "Jesse Burns."
The name echoed.
Not whispered.
Spoken.
And it struck different.
Because it wasn't a court name. It wasn't noble in the way these people respected. It was earned—etched in the blood of borders and the mud of skirmishes. Not everyone knew it. But those who did… stiffened slightly.
Rowen Drayke turned. His brow furrowed. Barely.
Lucavion?
His expression didn't change.
Of course it didn't.
But Jesse felt it.
The barest flicker of recognition.
Of memory.
He knows I'm coming.
She didn't bow. Didn't play coy.
She just stepped forward.
Purposefully.
Gratefully.
Because this—this farce of civility, this staged duel in the garden of politics—was her way in.
She wasn't approaching him as a girl pining in shadows.
She wasn't breaking rank to chase what she'd lost.
She was stepping forward as a representative.
Of her people.
Of her Empire.
Of herself.
Her boots echoed against the marble, sharp and steady. The slit in her formal uniform trailing like a scar. She passed nobles who barely masked their surprise—some curious, others faintly amused.
Let them watch.
Let them wonder why this was the one Loria had chosen.
Because Jesse knew the answer.
She knew it from the way Lucavion had stood alone.
Unflinching.
Unyielding.
She knew it from the way her own body still ached with memories she had never spoken aloud.
This was her chance.
To stand across from him.
To force a moment.
To see the man who had once carried her out of the battlefield's maw and told her the world was too stupid to kill them both.
And maybe—
Maybe—
To make him look her in the eyes again.
Jesse stepped into the atrium light, the night breeze catching the edge of her braid.
She didn't smile.
But…. she felt it in her chest.
Finally.
After all…
When her name was announced, Jesse didn't glance at the nobles, didn't look to Thalor or Rowen or the court's twisted tapestry of veiled expectation.
She looked at him.
Straight at him.
Lucavion.
The man who once pulled her from ash and flame like it was nothing.
The man who had smiled through war and bureaucracy and grief like it was all part of some long joke he refused to let kill him.
And now—
He was looking back.
Right at her.
His expression didn't falter entirely.
But it cracked.
Just for a moment.
His black eyes widened—not in fear, not in calculation—but in recognition.
It hit like a quiet thunderclap. That flicker in his gaze. That pause. That hesitation.
It was real.
He remembers.
The silence between them stretched—no words, no titles, no pretense.
And Jesse?
She smiled.
A slow, crooked thing. Not triumphant.
Just real.
'Hehehe…'
How could she not?
He knew her name.
Of all the things he could've forgotten—her rank, her house, the countless others from those bloody years—he hadn't forgotten her.
Even though she would've loved the moment to be different—cleaner, maybe. Private. Not under chandelier light and diplomatic scrutiny.
But….
This?
This was fine too.
Because it wasn't about the setting.
It was him.
And that expression on his face—that widening of his eyes, the subtle shift in his stance—that was more than she'd let herself hope for.
It wasn't just recognition.
It was him.
Still Lucavion.
Still hers, in that strange, unspeakable way that had never belonged to romance or reason.
And now?
Now she was walking toward him.
With the court watching.
With her heart quiet for the first time in years.