Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra - Chapter 1044 Bringing the past now?

Chapter 1044  Bringing the past now?

“I was not.”

Elowyn’s voice was calm, but this time it carried an edge Valeria hadn’t heard from her before. A defensiveness she didn’t bother to hide. A faint note of irritation—real irritation—that tightened the last word just slightly.

It made Valeria’s brows lift. Elowyn hadn’t sounded like that until Lucavion walked in.

Lucavion caught the shift too; he always did. His eyes brightened with the kind of mischief that thrived on cracking immaculate composure.

“Of course,” he said lightly. “You were simply observing my movements like a concerned citizen watching a suspicious figure in the night.”

Elowyn’s lips pressed into a thin line.

Definitely annoyed.

Valeria found herself oddly relieved by that. Elowyn wasn’t charmed by him. She was, if anything, irritated.

Lucavion shrugged, settling back in his seat as though their reactions only fed his amusement. “In any case, that is how we first encountered each other. And then, because we’re in the same dormitory block, we ended up in the same orientation groups.”

Valeria tapped her fingers against her cup. “That still doesn’t explain how you recognized her combat ability.”

Lucavion blinked once, innocently. “Can’t I simply say she looks strong? You know my instincts are remarkably accurate.”

Valeria leveled him with a stare she’d perfected during interrogations. “Your instincts are not the issue. The issue is that you’re selectively truthful.”

Elowyn’s eyes flicked up at that.

Lucavion held Valeria’s gaze for a moment—longer than necessary—before offering a lazy grin. “You’ve improved.”

“I’m not praising you,” she replied.

“Still sounded like praise.”

Valeria exhaled slowly. This was going nowhere. Her intuition kept whispering that Lucavion wasn’t being fully honest, even if he wasn’t outright lying. And when it came to intuition in battle—or about people—Valeria trusted hers as much as her blade.

Lucavion stretched in his seat, rolling his shoulders with casual ease before glancing briefly at Elowyn. The look was quick, practiced, almost a silent question. One Elowyn did not acknowledge.

Then he smirked at Valeria. “Not bad, Lady Knight. Not bad at all.”

She hated how her pulse jumped slightly at the praise—how it made her chest feel annoyingly warm.

Lucavion went on, as if satisfied she’d earned a scrap more truth. “Fine. To summarize our acquaintance: this frost mage here interrupted my early morning training.”

Elowyn’s eyes flicked sharply to him. “Your fire nearly burned me.”

Lucavion waved a dismissive hand. “Details. In any case, to compensate for the disturbance—”

“That is not what happened,” Elowyn murmured under her breath.

“—and perhaps to release some frustration,” Lucavion continued smoothly, “she offered to train with me.”

Valeria’s eyes widened. “You two sparred?”

Lucavion grinned. “Indeed. And I had the privilege of witnessing our frost mage’s delightful, unorthodox style firsthand.”

Elowyn looked away as if the conversation had suddenly become too inconvenient to engage in.

Valeria looked between them, trying to imagine the scene—Lucavion’s unpredictability against Elowyn’s adaptive spellwork. She understood then how Lucavion recognized her capabilities today. He hadn’t just guessed.

He had fought her.

In a sudden, unwelcome rush, Valeria felt something twist low in her chest.

She did not name it.

But she knew one thing:

Imagining it…. made her tremble.

Valeria drew a slow breath and turned her attention toward Elowyn first, then Lucavion, then back to Elowyn again. The twist in her chest hadn’t settled; it lingered like an uninvited echo, making her more aware of the space between them than she wanted to be.

“So…” she said carefully. “Was that the case?”

Elowyn’s eyes lifted toward Lucavion—not with admiration, nor embarrassment, but with a pointed glare that said she would be having words with him later. Lucavion received the glare with infuriating calm, as though it amused him more than anything.

Then Elowyn exhaled, smoothing her expression back to its composed neutrality.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “That was the case.”

Valeria nodded once, but her thoughts spun. Lucavion’s version was embellished, as always, yet the foundation rang true. Elowyn was too honest to deny it completely and too restrained to expose the full truth.

And Valeria recognized that restraint.

Lucavion didn’t lie.

But he rarely told the entire story.

He bent things into shapes that suited him, stretched them into something theatrical.

If she pushed him further—if she demanded every detail—he’d turn it into another performance. Worse, he might drag Elowyn into it again. And after the embarrassment Valeria had already endured today…

‘No. That’s enough.’

Besides—she did not miss Elowyn’s earlier reaction. The defensiveness that slipped into her tone. The annoyance she tried to keep subtle. The faint tension in her shoulders.

Even Elowyn would find persistent questioning suspicious.

Valeria straightened slightly, deciding to let the matter end here—for now.

“Hm,” she said, attempting to sound simply thoughtful rather than unsettled.

Lucavion leaned his cheek against his knuckles, watching her with the faintest smirk. “Is our Lady Knight satisfied?”

Valeria refused to look at him. “More or less.”

“More or less,” he echoed. “That means no.”

Elowyn set her cup down, her calm returning but her eyes still faintly sharp. “Let it be, Lucavion.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re telling me to let it be?”

“Yes.”

Lucavion considered that for a moment before giving a small nod, a concession so unusual that Valeria blinked in surprise.

The dining hall settled again around them, low chatter, clinking utensils, warm light from the rune-lamps—yet the tension of earlier had softened into something more controlled. Something manageable.

Valeria inhaled quietly.

Whatever discomfort she felt, whatever heat still lingered under her skin, she pushed it down. Lucavion always stretched moments too far, always turned truths into puzzles. And Elowyn… Elowyn was growing more interesting by the minute.

But if she chased every thread now, she’d entangle herself in a web that neither of them would help her out of.

‘Enough for today,’ she told herself.

‘Whatever.’

Lucavion seemed content to let the earlier tension dissolve. He lifted his glass, took a leisurely sip, and then set it down with the casual grace of someone who had decided the topic was officially closed.

“So,” he said brightly, “how did the two of you fare in the Combat Awareness Trial?”

Elowyn arched a brow. “You already implied you knew the outcome.”

“Yes, but I enjoy firsthand accounts,” Lucavion replied. “Especially when they involve frost mages who bend beginner spells into battlefield geometry.”

Elowyn’s spoon paused for just a moment before she resumed eating with practiced calm. “It worked for the situation.”

“Worked,” Lucavion repeated, amused. “Elowyn, you carved the field like you were redesigning the entire dome. I’ve seen seasoned battlemages fail to control flow that efficiently.”

Valeria’s gaze flicked toward Elowyn, pleased to hear her praised—then flicked sharply back to Lucavion when she caught the familiar tone he used. Too casual. Too knowing. He’d teased her earlier, but this—this warmth—felt personal.

“How do you know her abilities so well?” Valeria asked before she could stop herself.

Lucavion didn’t answer Valeria’s question immediately. Instead, he leaned back with that practiced ease of his and let his gaze drift between the two girls. Then, with the slightest tilt of his head, he replied:

“Most of the time,” he said, “fighting with someone is far clearer than speaking with them. Especially with people you’re not… familiar with.”

His eyes landed on Valeria. “You should know this better than anyone.”

Valeria froze.

Her fingers tightened around her cup before she consciously loosened them. She drew in a breath that felt too sharp, too sudden. For a moment she wasn’t in the dining hall anymore — the warmth of the lamps, the distant murmur of students — all of it dimmed behind the flick of memory hitting the back of her thoughts.

Rackenshore.

The inn.

The street outside.

The first time he shifted — from a lazy stranger into something that made her instincts roar and her pulse stumble.

‘I’ll see for myself,’ she had said back then, blade in hand.

‘Ready?’ he had answered….

Bringing back those memories, it was hard to answer.