It wasn’t broad. It wasn’t smug. But Valeria saw it—and what she saw behind it made her chest tighten.
Faint, veiled behind the usual irreverence. But it was there.
She hadn’t seen that look in years—not since the Iron Matron, not since the tournament. And yet, as though no time had passed, her instincts stirred. The skill of reading him—the one she thought buried under years of distance—was slipping back into her hands like a sword she’d never truly set down.
"Not bad," Lucavion said at last, his voice casual, but quieter than before.
Valeria didn’t respond, but her gaze remained on him—unmoving, expectant.
"Knighthood, to many," he went on, "is a tool of serving. A banner. A symbol."
He shrugged, turning his gaze toward the chandelier above, where the light refracted across silver and glass like a dance of masks.
"But it’s also a tool of cowardice."
That made her eyes narrow. Sharply.
Lucavion caught it immediately, of course. He always did.
He raised one hand, palm out, placating. "Come on. Don’t look at me like that. Let me finish."
Valeria didn’t relax—but she didn’t interrupt either.
Lucavion’s voice lowered a notch. Not for secrecy—but for weight.
"Most knights, especially those anointed by noble houses, command a power that ordinary people can’t even fathom," he said. "They wield mana. Blade. Aura. Alone, they could level a house. Together, they can raze a city."
His eyes returned to hers. No smile now. Just something steadier. Measured.
"They carry out orders with that power. Burn down entire villages that resist the whims of a baron. Crush uprisings before the first cry can leave a child’s throat. Erase a name—an entire bloodline—from a ledger because it’s ’treasonous.’"
He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.
"They do it," he said simply, "and then they hide behind the phrase: I was following orders."
Lucavion’s words settled like ash between them. Quiet. Heavy.
"You’ve seen it," he continued. "Haven’t you? The look on their faces. Not just the victims. The knights. The ones who do the deed, then disappear behind a wall of law and protocol."
Valeria’s jaw clenched. Just slightly. But he caught it.
"That," Lucavion said, voice dropping again, "is cowardice."
Lucavion didn’t press further immediately. He let the silence settle, like dust across an old map. When he spoke again, it was quieter—more resigned than impassioned.
"And that," he said, "isn’t just about knights. That’s human nature."
Valeria’s eyes narrowed—not in disbelief, but in restraint. She was listening now. Fully.
Lucavion’s hand gestured vaguely toward the air, the chandelier, the nobility beyond them.
"You see it in the courts," he said. "Clerks who sign away land because a higher noble said so. Priests who bless war because their patrons told them the cause was holy. Merchants who raise prices on grain because it’s policy, even when they know a village will starve."
He turned toward her again.
"And it goes lower, too. Guards who look away because it’s easier. Scribes who erase a name from the records because it keeps them fed. Even healers who let a man die because a Lord’s purse speaks louder than a widow’s tears."
Valeria didn’t flinch. But her expression was tightening. Sharpening.
"People," Lucavion continued, "are taught that as long as the command is above them, their hands stay clean."
Lucavion’s eyes darkened slightly—not with fury, but with something colder. More precise.
"But then," he said, "the question becomes—who holds the responsibility?"
His voice was steady, but each word felt like a stone cast into still water.
"If everyone below answers to someone above... if every command is just another link in a chain... then where does it stop? At what point does someone finally take the weight?"
Valeria remained silent. Listening.
He leaned slightly on the edge of the table beside him, arms folding—not in ease, but in restraint.
"Just because they evade it... just because they dilute it across a thousand names and titles and seals... does that make it right?" he asked. "If no one is to blame, then no one is guilty. And if no one is guilty—what justice could ever mean anything?"
A faint bitterness laced his next breath.
"In a world where the structure itself protects the predator, where power masks itself in language and law, how can life mean anything to the ones born without that shield?" His gaze flicked upward, then back to her. "How does a starving mother justify her death to a clerk’s ledgers? Or a dying soldier to a baron’s profit?"
His tone hardened—not loud, but with a clarity that struck sharper than steel.
"That," he said, "is what I hate most."
Cowardice, in its purest form.
The kind that smiles while it kills. That shrugs while it exploits. That hides behind polite laughter, then signs off on ruin with ink barely dry.
And Valeria knew he wasn’t speaking in abstractions anymore.
He was speaking of the Cloud Heavens Sect. Of what he had done.
"When they begged," Lucavion said, voice low, "they didn’t speak of innocence. They spoke of status. Of connections. Of who would miss them."
He didn’t sneer. He didn’t brag.
He stated it as one might describe the color of the sky before a storm.
Then his gaze lifted—slowly, but unmistakably—toward the thrones beyond, where politics coiled like silk around steel.
"And I will deal with anyone else who stands on corpses and calls it tradition."
Lucavion’s gaze was steady now—no trace of smirk or jest, no veil of mockery to hide behind.
He looked at her as one might look at a horizon long decided.
"In the face of injustice," he said quietly, "I don’t stand still."
His voice didn’t rise.
Because it carried something heavier than volume.
"That’s who I am. That’s the path I’ve chosen. No one assigned it to me. No legacy handed it down. I walk it because someone has to."
He took a step closer—not threatening, but real. Unflinching.
"That’s it, little Pink Knight. That’s your reason."
His hand lifted slightly, not to gesture or grandstand, but to press briefly against his chest.
"I, Lucavion," he said, "don’t bow to anyone. Not kings. Not princes. Not even gods, if they trade justice for comfort."
Valeria’s breath hitched. He didn’t stop.
"I don’t care about status. I don’t care about lineage. I don’t care what title someone’s cradle gift them."
His eyes locked with hers—like they always did, burning past armor and silence alike.
"In my eyes, those who hold power are responsible for the power granted to them. And those who don’t hold to that responsibility..."
The final words dropped like steel, smooth and absolute.
"I will be their worst nightmare."