The murmurs still lingered like smoke—heavy, cloying, desperate to cling to something solid. Faces turned, some with suspicion, others with newfound reverence. But Lucavion didn’t revel in it.
He let the glass touch his lips again—not to drink, but to move. A subtle gesture, just enough to keep eyes from noticing the pause in his breath. The room saw poise. Confidence. But behind his eyes—
From the moment he stepped onto that terrace weeks ago, when the festival’s laughter still masked the rot beneath, this had been his intent. Not rage. Not vengeance. Structure.
’The world calls it instinct,’ he mused, ’but it’s just well-read memory. All of this—every line, every look, every silence—it was written before any of them knew they were actors.’
The girl—the one they harassed. She wasn’t random, nor the baron that was around her. After all, they were the actors that Lucien planned the scene to proceed. This was something that Lucavion has already talked with Priscilla before.
He had been expecting it.
That moment was mentioned in the novel briefly, and he didn’t have the exact knowledge. So he had to wait for nearly the whole month for the scene to happen in that terrace.
A fifth of his total reserves—gone. Liquidated quietly through dummy channels, passed into the hands of a discreet artificer with no name and too much ambition. The result?
An innovation even the tower hadn’t named yet. A crystalline whisper bound by spatial rune-threads and memory seals, delicate and almost mythical. Experimental. Unsanctioned. Unknown.
Lucien had never seen it coming. Because he couldn’t.
Because Lucien didn’t think like Lucavion.
Because Lucien—arrogant, brilliant, blind—had already decided what Lucavion was.
’And that,’ Lucavion mused, letting his eyes drift lazily over the trembling nobles, ’was the root of it, wasn’t it?’
Lucien hadn’t protected the scene. He hadn’t warded it, hadn’t cloaked it in illusion. He hadn’t needed to. After all—
Why would a mere commoner have access to something even the royal family can barely touch?
’He didn’t guard his secrets,’ Lucavion thought, the taste of amusement faint on his tongue, ’because he never believed I could steal them.’
And that—that—was the mistake.
He had known Lucien would interfere.
From the moment he stepped into this confrontation, from the instant he drew Priscilla into the storm, he knew the Crown Prince would descend. Because Lucien always moved to protect control.
’This was too perfect for him,’ Lucavion thought. ’Two problems—one blade. If he could discredit her and me in a single stroke, he’d never let that moment pass.’
In words alone, Lucien would’ve destroyed them. Priscilla’s status was brittle. Lucavion’s—nonexistent. A sister with no power and a boy with no name. Compared to the Crown Prince?
It wouldn’t even be a contest.
’He thought I was playing with words,’ Lucavion reflected. ’That I’d come with passion and outrage, and nothing else. That I would dance for a moment, then break under the weight of "truth."’
He smiled now, faintly, as if the thought itself were worth a toast.
’But I didn’t bring a dance. I brought a loaded stage.’
And beneath that stage?
A Recorder still slept.
For the right moment.
Lucavion’s fingers loosened slightly around the stem of his glass. Not in nervousness. In recognition.
It could’ve ended here.
Lucien could have prevented this.
One order. That’s all it would’ve taken. A simple command to the guard detail: "Scan for illicit artifacts. No personal conduits allowed." It would’ve been standard protocol if he’d so much as entertained the idea of risk.
This was, after all, the Imperial Academy Entrance Banquet.
No artifacts were allowed.
The entire banquet was sealed in ceremonial wards. Magic was regulated. Detection runes were imbued in every wall. The guards at the entrance? Trained to identify aura disturbances, spell-imbued trinkets, mana laced through threads.
Lucavion had walked in untouched.
Because Lucien hadn’t ordered it.
And Lucavion knew exactly why.
’Because your pride wouldn’t let you,’ he thought, eyes gleaming with a cold, quiet clarity.
The Crown Prince of the Empire, son of the first flame, heir of the red banners...
To a man who believed blood determined worth, how could he see a commoner as anything but beneath him? A bug. A pawn. A shadow in the hall.
He didn’t just miss the play.
He didn’t look for it.
’If he’d known,’ Lucavion mused, ’if he had even suspected I carried something of value—he would have stopped it. Instantly. Efficiently. Brutally.’
But Lucien hadn’t suspected.
Because Lucien couldn’t imagine a world where someone like Lucavion—nameless, titleless, unblessed by lineage—could outmaneuver him.
’That’s your flaw,’ Lucavion thought, watching the fire behind Lucien’s mask begin to crack. ’Your crown is what holds you back.’
His grin widened—slow, deliberate, infuriating.
Not mockery. Not triumph.
The blood-red eyes across the room bore into him now—blazing, furious, sharp enough to flay marble. But Lucavion didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch.
Because the murmurs were rising again.
They always rose after silence.
This time, it wasn’t fear.
It was the sound of nobles recalibrating.
Lucien’s hand twitched slightly at his side—too small for most to catch. But Lucavion did.
’Now you see it, don’t you?’ he thought. ’That one of your shadows walked in with a blade you didn’t see. That while you painted your scene with crimson perfection—I rewrote the ending in invisible ink.’
The silence fractured—not with shouts, not with accusations, but with something quieter.
The rustle of silk. The soft clink of a wine glass set too quickly on marble. The flutter of a fan folding a heartbeat too fast.
Barely more than breath.
"...did you see his face just now?"
"...never thought she’d speak like that. The princess, I mean."
"...is it true, then? That Reynard—?"
"...Lucien... misstepped?"
Each one thin as a reed. A syllable here, a glance there. But together? They gathered like smoke under a closed door—slow, spreading, impossible to contain.
Lucavion didn’t move.
Because the room was shifting around him.
Not overtly. No one dared raise their voice above decorum now. Not with Lucien still standing there, back ramrod straight, jaw clenched like a vice. Not with that aura of command simmering around him like heat above fire.
But that was the problem.
He was still standing.
And silence—in a room —was as good as surrender.
’Now you understand,’ Lucavion thought, watching a lord at the eastern table lean subtly toward his companion, his lips moving behind a gloved hand. ’This isn’t about proof. It’s about perception. And you’re bleeding it out by the second.’
A woman near the center—the widow of Duke Argonne—lowered her goblet with precise elegance. Her brow was furrowed just slightly. Enough for others to see. Enough to suggest.
"...surely the Crown Prince wouldn’t shield someone so brazenly if..."
"...but if there is evidence..."
"...this could be a setup. Against her. Against him."
Lucien heard it. Of course he did.
Every whisper was a dagger.
He had crafted a court built on fear, on reverence, on a truth so solid it need not be questioned. And now—now—that very structure had begun to hum with fault lines.
They didn’t need to yell.
They just needed to wonder.
Lucavion tilted his head, a picture of languid interest, as if he were listening to the orchestra instead of the slow-blooming ruin beneath it.
’It’s starting, Lucien,’ he thought, letting his gaze meet the prince’s once more. ’They won’t say it to your face. Not yet. But give it time. They’ll turn.’
They’ll pretend they never stood with you to begin with.