Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra - Chapter 806: Dissarray (2)

Chapter 806: Dissarray (2)

Why doesn’t it feel like that?

Why did her instincts, those same instincts forged in exile and betrayal and blood, pull in the opposite direction?

Lucavion’s smirk was still visible from across the hall. Casual. Detached. As if the chaos he’d unleashed was nothing more than another page turning in a story only he had read.

But something in it—something—refused to sit cleanly beside Isolde’s venom. There was calculation, yes. But not cruelty. There was power, yes. But not that aching hunger for dominance that defined her.

Elara exhaled, slow, controlled. Her eyes narrowed.

Was it because of the time they shared?

The moment in the snow-drowned corridor. The first confrontation. The flicker of something too vulnerable beneath his composed armor, so fleeting she almost doubted it had existed. The way he looked at her—not as a threat, not as a pawn—but like she was a storm he could respect.

Even then… were they already planning this? Him and Isolde, plotting every step, every glance?

She wanted to believe yes.

It was safer.

Cleaner.

But the thought didn’t settle. It itched.

Scratched at her bones.

And in the hollow space it left, another thought bloomed— _{freew\ebno\vel..(c)om}

’Why not?’

Why wouldn’t he be the villain? Why wouldn’t he lie again? Use her again? Why wouldn’t he be her creature?

But the answer didn’t come.

And that silence, that was the most dangerous part.

A voice—soft, startled—cut through Elara’s spiraling thoughts like a thread pulled taut through silk.

“Oh…”

Elara blinked.

“What?” she asked, slow, still pulling herself from the undertow of her mind.

Selphine didn’t answer right away. Her gaze had locked on something across the ballroom, her lips slightly parted, brows furrowed in something between disbelief and apprehension.

Aurelian leaned forward, already turning. “What is it—?”

And then Elara saw it.

There—at the edge of the ballroom, beneath the subdued flare of crystal sconces and velvet drapery, where Lucavion had stood alone just moments ago—now stood another figure.

Her hair was the first thing Elara noticed. A soft cascade of rose-gold, too precisely colored to be accident, too sharp in contrast against the subdued palette of the hall. It flowed down to her waist in clean, gleaming waves, catching the light like a banner unfurled.

But it wasn’t the hair that made Elara’s breath catch.

It was the presence.

Measured. Silent. Absolute.

Even from across the ballroom, she radiated something ironclad—an elegance laced with steel, like a blade hidden beneath brocade. Her back was straight, hands folded in front of her like a court-trained noble, yet there was a precision in the way she held herself that made it unmistakable.

Valeria Olarion.

The girl Elara had marked before.

The one who carried her own storm behind careful manners and armor-polished poise.

And now—she was standing before him.

Not flinching. Not retreating. Not even watching her surroundings. Just there, in front of Lucavion, who—true to form—hadn’t moved a muscle. His smirk still lingered, faint and unreadable, but his eyes were fixed on Valeria like a conversation was already taking place between them, silent and exclusive.

Selphine whispered, “I can’t believe it…”

Aurelian’s jaw had tightened. “She walked to him?”

“She chose to,” Selphine added, still sounding stunned.

Selphine’s voice dipped lower, as though saying it too loud might break whatever strange magic was unfolding at the ballroom’s edge. “She was called the Pink Knight,” she said, “back in the Vendor Martial Tournament. A duelist of impossible grace.”

Aurelian nodded grimly. “She made it to the semi-finals. Lost to Varen Drakov by a single strike, if I remember correctly. And even then—she walked away without a scratch. Said to be the cleanest fight of the year.”

Elara’s eyes didn’t move from the pair. “I remember that match,” she murmured. “Varen called it ’fighting a mirror that bled light.’”

Selphine exhaled. “But what no one wanted to say out loud—what the courts whispered behind masks and folded fans—was that before that tournament, she was seen often at the training courts. Not alone.”

Aurelian’s eyes darkened. “Lucavion.”

Selphine nodded. “There were rumors. Nothing confirmed. But… looking at them now?”

There, under the dim golden wash of the chandeliers, Valeria stood just inches from him. Not close enough to be improper. But close enough that the space between them felt intentional. Charged.

Lucavion, for all his cold theater, had let his smirk fade slightly—eyes narrowing not with caution, but with recognition. As if something unfinished had just returned to its starting point.

“It was real,” Elara said quietly. Not quite a question.

Lucavion tilted his head toward Valeria, speaking low, the edges of his words lost in the ballroom’s gentle hum. Whatever he said, it made her mouth twitch—not quite a smile, not yet—but there was a lift in her brows, a flicker of something wry in her gaze. She replied, sharp and crisp, and Lucavion laughed.

Not the smirk. Not the quiet mockery he wore like second skin.

A real laugh.

Subtle, but real.

And that—that—made something twist inside Elara’s chest.

It wasn’t jealousy. Not precisely. It wasn’t even anger.

It was…

Pity.

Not for Lucavion.

For Valeria.

’If you knew what he did… would you still stand by his side?’

Would you still laugh with him in the quiet, like he hadn’t once treated someone like a pawn on a losing board? Would you stand there so composed, so unwavering, if you saw what he could do when no one was looking?

And yet—

The thought turned. Curled back on itself.

Because she remembered the way he had stood beside her, just briefly, in Stormhaven. The way he had spoken to her not as a threat, or an opponent, or even a curiosity—but like someone he had seen.

They had spoken for no more than two nights. She had been in pain—bitter, raw, freshly exiled—and he had been… something strange. Not kind. But attentive. And in that attention, something else had slipped through.

’It was short,’ she thought. ’Barely two days. And yet…’

And yet here she was, trying to measure another woman’s silence against her own memory.

She watched as Valeria said something that made Lucavion grin—sharp, teeth bared just slightly. Valeria rolled her eyes and shook her head, but didn’t step away.

’You don’t know him,’ Elara thought, not bitterly, but with a strange kind of weight. ’And maybe that’s better.’

Just then, laughter broke the quiet tension—brash, too loud for the atmosphere—and a trio of students veered toward their table. Familiar sigils gleamed on their cuffs, their eyes bright with wine and ambition.

“Elowyn!” one of them called cheerfully, raising his glass in half-salute. “Baroness Caerlin, we’ve been hoping to steal a moment!”

The table shifted. Selphine straightened. Aurelian offered a polite smile. And Elara—

Elara smoothed her expression, the motion as practiced as drawing a blade.

Whatever storm had started behind her eyes—she folded it, pressed it down.

Let them think she was listening. Let them believe her still.

But even as her lips moved in polite reply, her gaze wandered again.

To the man who laughed softly with a duelist of mirrors and steel.

To the echo of something that hadn’t yet decided what shape it would take.

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