Chapter 657: Lucavion, not Luca
The projection magnified, centering on them—on the space that was no longer a clearing, but a crucible.
Aurelian leaned forward, practically vibrating in his chair. "Finally..."
Selphine said nothing, but her arms crossed tighter, her chin lifting slightly in that way she always did when something genuinely interested her.
Elara?
Elara couldn't look away if she tried.
The first movement was subtle. Barely a twitch of Luca's wrist as he adjusted his grip on the estoc, still held low, still deceptively idle. The white cat on his shoulder opened one lazy eye, gave a single unimpressed flick of its tail, and closed it again.
The illusion rippled.
Elayne came in—not with a reckless lunge, but with the precision of someone who had killed enough times to know better. She blurred into three images—one directly at him, one flanking left, one flanking right—each flickering just enough that even an experienced fighter would hesitate.
But Luca—
He didn't react.
Not in the way most would.
He waited.
Breathless tension coiled around his stillness, thick and almost unbearable—and when Elayne's real self struck from the right—
He moved.
Not backward. Not sideways.
Forward.
A half-step so small it barely counted, but it shattered the rhythm she'd built. Her first dagger whistled past his shoulder, catching nothing but air.
And his estoc, that thin glint of polished dusk, flicked upward—
CLANG.
Blade met dagger.
Not with a parry. Not with a block.
With a tap.
A deliberate, surgical deflection that threw her balance off by a hair's breadth—enough that her second strike faltered before it began.
"Elara..." Aurelian murmured, almost reverent. "He's..."
"A monster," Selphine finished for him, voice soft but sharp. "Not in power. In control."
Elayne spun, regathering momentum mid-air. Her illusions re-layered seamlessly—new flickers of movement, feints upon feints. She came again, faster this time. Twin crescent daggers carving impossible arcs, blades honed not just to cut flesh, but to sever focus.
Any ordinary duelist would have been shredded.
But Luca didn't seem to fight in the same world.
He didn't chase her feints. Didn't let his sight dictate his actions.
Instead, he felt.
Each step he took was economical. Clean. A quiet mastery that turned her furious offense into a shallow dance. His estoc moved less like a sword and more like a living thread, weaving through her strikes with devastating clarity.
Another lunge—Elayne's blade came low, aimed to hamstring.
Luca's foot slid back half a step, his free hand flicking two fingers against the flat of her dagger.
TINK.
The motion redirected it just enough that it missed his leg entirely.
No wasted movements. No wide parries.
Just precision.
Surgical, brutal precision.
Elayne's teeth flashed in a snarl, the first crack in her composed mask. She layered another illusion—this one within a previous one, a delayed false-image trick even most veterans would miss.
The left dagger struck high, right toward his throat.
For a breath, it seemed—seemed—that it would land.
And then—
Luca moved like water slipping past stone.
He ducked, not backward, but inside her guard. The estoc's tip angled upward at the last second, grazing the underside of her dagger hand and forcing it harmlessly wide.
And before she could reset—
TAP.
The estoc's hilt kissed the hollow of her throat with a force light enough not to bruise—but heavy enough to declare.
Checkmate.
The projection froze that frame.
The silence on the terrace was absolute.
Only the distant hum of festival drums and the low crackle of fireworks filled the background.
Selphine's eyes narrowed, her expression unreadable.
Aurelian whistled under his breath. "By the stars... he dismantled her."
Elara found herself smiling.
It was small, almost imperceptible—a faint curve of her lips as she watched him, this boy, this impossibility standing at the center of the storm as though he had been born to it.
Her Luca.
Alive.
Unbroken.
And yet—
'Why does it feel like I'm looking at a stranger's shadow?'
The thought coiled in her chest, cold and unwelcome. She pushed it down, tucking it away like a sliver of glass caught under skin—later, she told herself. Later.
Across the projection, Elayne Cors straightened slowly, her dual daggers lowering to her sides—not in defeat, but in recognition. A tilt of her head, sharp and short, like the nod between duelists who understood the line that had just been drawn.
Then, without a word, she blurred into nothingness.
Gone.
A retreat.
A surrender by any technical measure—but there was no shame in it.
Selphine leaned back in her chair, arms folding with a satisfied nod. "Smart," she said crisply. "She knew. Stay longer, and he would've broken more than just her rhythm."
Aurelian exhaled, slumping with a dramatic flop into his seat. "Anticlimactic, though," he grumbled, snatching his fallen napkin off the ground and flicking it back onto the table. "I was hoping for a little more chaos. Maybe a fireball or two."
Selphine gave him a look. "You don't duel Luca with chaos. You drown in it."
Elara said nothing.
Her gaze remained fixed on the projection, where Luca now stood alone once more under the relic tree. The clearing hummed around him, full of breathless mana, as if the very world itself bent slightly to his existence.
No cheers.
No grand proclamations.
Just a young man with a sword and a smile so easy it carved open old wounds in her chest.
Elara swallowed hard, forcing the smile on her lips to stay where it was. She wouldn't—couldn't—show them the way her heart hammered against her ribs. The way her instincts—those same instincts that had carried her through battles, betrayals, banishments—whispered warnings she couldn't name.
'Why do I feel like I should be afraid?'
But there was no answer.
Only the steady, unbearable pull in her chest.
Just then, the projection above the terrace flickered—subtle at first, then sharply, as a new layer of magic overlaid the image. The standard crimson border of the arena's broadcast changed, widening, reforming into a gilded frame.
A ripple of murmurs ran through the square.
"What's happening?" Aurelian asked, sitting up straighter.
Selphine's eyes narrowed. "Candidate identification."
Elara's stomach twisted.
The festival organizers had started adding the feature during this year's trials—a public registry flashing the names of any contender who made a notable claim. It was meant to draw attention. Fame. Opportunity.
But right now, the air around them felt too still. Too weighted.
A faint chime sounded, delicate as crystal—and the letters burned into existence over Luca's head.
---------
Candidate – Name: Lucavion
--------
Elara's teacup slipped from her fingers.
It didn't shatter. It merely tipped against the table, the sound of its fall muffled by the roar that erupted inside her mind.
Her breath caught painfully in her throat.
Selphine's head whipped toward her at the movement, but Elara barely registered it.
Her gaze was locked, chained to the name written across the screen.
Lucavion.
'No...'
The word shuddered out of her silently, her lips moving but no sound coming forth.
Lucavion.
It wasn't just a name.
It was the name.
The name that she had carved into her heart, the name that she couldn't possibly forget.
Chapter 658: Lucavion, not Luca (2)
The name burned into her vision, into her very breath.
Lucavion.
'No. No, no, no—'
The air around Elara seemed to thin, folding in on itself, as the world blurred at the edges. She barely heard Selphine's sharp intake of breath, Aurelian's startled murmur. Their voices became static against the roar growing inside her skull.
She was fifteen again.
Standing beneath a canopy of chandeliers and silk banners, dressed in her house's finest silver-and-ice gown. Her hair woven into a coronet of starlight threads. Tonight was supposed to be her moment—her debut—the moment she would stand before the world as Elara Valoria, heir to the Grand Duchy, the living proof of her family's might and future.
The music had swelled. The crowd had gathered.
She had walked forward, every step practiced, every movement laden with expectation.
And then—
The scream.
The rupture of decorum so violent it tore the melody in half.
Whispers rising like a tide, choking the hall.
And there she was—dragged into the center of it all, dragged from a hidden chamber where the scene had already been staged. The horror frozen into her bones even before she saw it clearly: her own body, stripped, vulnerable, sprawled beside a boy she barely even knew—
Lucavion.
And he, groggy-eyed, reaching toward her with a touch that even now made her want to retch.
The accusations had fallen like blades.
Defiled. Disgraced. Whore.
No questions asked. No justice sought.
Only judgment.
Only exile.
'I tried to speak.'
'I tried to scream the truth.'
'But they didn't want truth. They wanted a villain.'
Her fists clenched so tightly now that she felt the half-moons of her nails cutting into her skin, grounding her in the present—but barely.
'Father. Alexander Valoria. The man whose hand once lifted me into the sky as a child... he looked at me that night like I was filth.'
'And Isolde.'
'My sister.'
'Smiling with that careful, angelic curve of her lips as she twisted the knife deeper.'
Elara's chest ached, but the pain was familiar. Fuel. Weapon.
For years—years—she had endured the sneers. The betrayal. The world that spat her out and demanded she crawl or die.
And she had survived.
'I promised myself.'
'I swore upon the broken ruins of my life: I would make them regret it.'
The Academy. Her magic. Her cold, careful training under Eveline's brutal hand. Every humiliation swallowed. Every weakness burned out of her body until only steel remained.
All for vengeance.
All to make them kneel.
And yet—
And yet, even after all that, when she thought she had hardened her heart into something unbreakable, when Eveline had scooped her from the gutter of exile and sharpened her into a blade of vengeance—
He had appeared.
Luca.
Not Lucavion.
Just Luca.
The boy who had slipped through the cracks of her armor with an infuriating grin and a stubborn, reckless kindness she hadn't known how to refuse.
He wasn't supposed to exist.
She remembered it too clearly—how she had first seen him in Stormhaven, where Eveline had sent her on her first true trial.
And there he had been.
Bickering with vendors, charming his way past guards, moving like the city owed him nothing—and he owed nothing back. A boy with scuffed boots, sharp eyes, and a reckless kind of courage that made her grind her teeth in frustration.
'Why do you keep smiling at me like that?' she had snapped once, after he caught her from slipping off a collapsing scaffold with a hand calloused from real work, real battles.
He had only shrugged, as if it were obvious.
"Because someone ought to."
She hadn't known what to do with that.
With him.
Because Luca didn't flinch at her sharpness. He didn't bow to her pedigree. He laughed when she was cold, grinned wider when she was furious, and—infuriatingly—stood beside her even when she pushed him away.
And when the monsters of the old city had come for them, when she had fallen, mana drained and body broken—
He had thrown himself between her and death without a second thought.
Bleeding, battered, smiling.
"Told you," he had gasped, teasing even then, "someone's gotta keep you outta trouble."
She remembered that night. How she had clutched his hand with bloodstained fingers, how the trembling in her chest hadn't been fear, but something far, far worse.
Hope.
'Luca.'
The name had settled into her bones like a whispered promise.
A new beginning.
A way forward that didn't have to be built on hate alone.
But now—
Now that cursed name burned in the air.
Lucavion.
'Why?'
'Why do you have that name?'
Her throat tightened as she fought to breathe past the hurricane inside her chest. The memories of Stormhaven, of laughter against cold stars, of battles fought shoulder-to-shoulder—it all tangled with the horror she had tried so hard to bury.
The hall dissolved into a hollow ringing, drowning out Selphine's voice, Aurelian's touch on her shoulder.
All Elara could see—
All she could feel—
Were those eyes.
Not Luca's laughing, reckless defiance.
No.
The heavy-lidded, half-lost gaze of the boy who had ruined her.
Lucavion.
Pinned beneath him—
Bare—
Powerless—
The searing shame etched into her skin like a brand she would carry until the end of her days.
'No…no, please, no—'
Her mind flailed, recoiling from the memory, but it was too late.
It unspooled inside her like a blade dragged through her very core.
The heavy press of his body, too much against her.
The sticky, unfamiliar warmth of skin against skin.
The freezing cold of the air, the way it wrapped around her nakedness like a jeering crowd.
The helpless, primal terror in her chest when she realized her voice—
Her voice—
Would not save her.
She remembered the sickening clatter of the doors thrown open.
The nobles gasping, recoiling, their faces twisted with a satisfaction that fed on her ruin.
She remembered how the sheets tangled around her thighs when she scrambled to cover herself.
How the scream tore out of her before she even knew she had screamed.
She remembered—
The way Lucavion had turned toward her then, his face slack with confusion, his hand reaching for her like a grotesque echo of affection.
And the worst part—
The very worst part—
Was the betrayal inside her own heart.
That tiny, shivering fragment that had whispered:
'Maybe he didn't mean it.'
The same part that had once whispered that Isolde still loved her.
Elara staggered backward now, out of the present, back into the depths of her own mind.
Her fingers clawed at her own arms, at the suffocating weight of the memory, but it wouldn't leave her.
The nausea rose, thick and choking, a bile that no training, no magic could banish.
Her knees threatened to buckle.
She didn't even realize she was trembling until she felt Selphine's hand steadying her—but it was like being touched through water, distant and numb.
Lucavion.
Luca.
The boy she had started to trust.
The boy she had thought—no, knew—she could have built something different with.
It was him.
It had always been him.
The world tilted around her.
The light burned too bright.
The air tasted of ash.
Her vision blurred again, and in the blur she could almost see him—
That crooked grin, that outstretched hand—
Morphing, shifting, bleeding into the Lucavion of that night.
The boy whose presence had stolen everything from her.
The bile climbed higher.
She clamped a hand over her mouth, but it was no use.
– SPILL.
The retching came violently, staining the polished floor with the sick twist of memory and betrayal.
She doubled over, one hand braced against the ground, the other gripping her own ribs so tightly it felt like she might break herself apart.
Whispers began.
Muted gasps.
The hall reacting, recoiling—like then, like always.
Elara's teeth ground together, the copper taste of blood rising as she bit the inside of her cheek.
'Not here.'
'Not now.'
'You will not fall here.'
But the storm inside her did not heed her will.
Chapter 659: Lucavion, not Luca (3)
"Elowyn!"
Selphine's voice cut through the hush, sharp and laced with genuine alarm.
Aurelian was already half out of his chair, his hands twitching as if unsure whether to reach for her or give her space. "Elowyn, are you—?"
But it was Cedric who moved first.
The scraping of his chair was abrupt, a grating rupture against the marble floor, and in three long strides he was there—shoulder brushing Selphine aside without a second thought.
"Elowyn's not feeling well," Cedric said quickly, his voice low but commanding enough to brook no argument. His hand found her shoulder, steady and warm, grounding her in a way she hadn't realized she still needed.
He crouched beside her, leaning down until his mouth was near her ear, shielding her from the dozens of half-curious, half-disgusted glances sharpening across the terrace.
"We need to move," he murmured.
Elara tried to speak, but her throat convulsed uselessly around the effort. All she could do was nod—barely, weakly—and feel the humiliation curl tighter in her gut.
Cedric straightened smoothly, slipping an arm beneath hers to help her rise without any more spectacle than was already inevitable. His grip was steady, careful. Not holding her up, but giving her the choice to lean if she needed it.
He turned toward a nearby server, a young man already hovering awkwardly at the edge of the terrace.
"Toilet?" Cedric asked briskly, his free hand jerking his thumb in a subtle motion to the side.
The waiter, pale and wide-eyed, nodded quickly and pointed toward a door tucked discreetly into the shadowed corner of the courtyard.
Cedric inclined his head—a tight, grateful bow more habit than thought—then shifted his hold on Elara.
"Let's go," he said under his breath, low enough that only she could hear.
He moved with efficient precision, half-guiding, half-shielding her from the gawking crowd as he steered her toward the indicated door. Behind them, the murmur of scandal began to rise—a sea of whispers lapping hungrily at their retreating backs.
At the periphery of her blurred vision, Elara saw Selphine start to move after them, her brows furrowed in clear concern—but Aurelian caught her sleeve, murmuring something urgent that made her hesitate, just for a breath.
And that breath was all Cedric needed.
He pushed the door open with his shoulder, guiding her into the cool, dim corridor beyond. The muffled thud of the door shutting behind them was like the slam of a coffin lid—mercifully, blessedly silencing the crowd outside.
Only then did Elara sag slightly against him, her fingers twisting into the fabric of his sleeve.
Cedric's hand shifted instinctively to her back, anchoring her with a firm, steady pressure.
"You're okay," he said, voice rough but certain. "You're okay. I've got you."
And for just a moment, just a heartbeat—
She let herself believe him.
Even as the storm still howled inside her chest.
Even as Lucavion's name still burned like a brand against the walls of her mind.
Even as the broken pieces of who she had been—who she had trusted—kept slicing her open from the inside out.
Cedric pushed the door to the washroom open with his back, guiding her in without letting go.
The walls inside were pale stone, washed in the soft hum of light crystals, too clean, too pristine for the wreckage boiling inside her.
Elara barely made it two steps before she lurched forward, bracing herself against the marble counter.
Her hands trembled. Her legs wouldn't stop shaking.
And when she finally found her voice—it was barely more than a breath, a ragged whisper escaping between gasps.
"It was him…" she stammered, her nails scraping uselessly against the cold surface. "That—"
Her mouth snapped shut as another violent wave of nausea overtook her.
– SPILL.
The retching ripped out of her again, harsher this time, burning the back of her throat as her whole body convulsed.
Cedric didn't flinch.
He was there, steady, folding a cloth from the corner dispenser, setting it silently beside her. His hand hovered at her back but didn't touch—waiting, offering, not forcing.
Elara gagged once more, dry heaving, the sounds torn from her chest as if she were trying to expel the very memories clawing their way up from her soul.
And then, between broken breaths, the words cracked out:
"Luca was Lucavion…"
Her head bowed low, her forehead nearly touching the marble now.
"Why…" she choked, "why didn't I see it?"
Her voice broke on the last word.
A sound so full of betrayal it made Cedric's heart seize in his chest.
He crouched down beside her, leveling his gaze with hers even though she couldn't lift her head to meet it. His voice was rough, low, but steady—a tether thrown into the storm swallowing her.
"I'm here," Cedric said simply. "I'm on your side. Always."
A beat. His hand, firm now, resting against her trembling back.
"I knew something was off about him," Cedric murmured, the words falling out in a low, rough breath.
For a heartbeat, that was all.
But then—
Something sharper edged into his tone. Something he didn't quite catch himself in time.
"Now do you believe me?" he said, quieter, but the undercurrent was unmistakable. "Didn't you fight with me over that guy? Didn't you defend him?"
There was no venom in it. No cruelty.
Just the old, familiar wound between them, reopened without warning.
Elara flinched—not from his words, but from everything.
From the taste of bile still clawing up her throat, from the unbearable weight of the realization pressing her into the marble, from the past and present crashing together with enough force to tear her open.
She didn't answer.
She couldn't.
Not because she didn't hear him—
But because she couldn't find anything left inside herself to answer with.
The silence stretched between them, thin and brittle.
And then Cedric exhaled, the weight of his own bitterness finally catching up to him.
He cursed under his breath and shook his head, a hand dragging roughly through his hair.
"No," he muttered, the sharpness bleeding out of him, replaced by something heavier. "Forget I said that. This... this isn't the time."
He pressed the cloth gently against her trembling hands, coaxing her fingers to close around it.
"I'm here," Cedric said again, softer this time, the rough edges smoothed by something that almost sounded like regret. "Just focus on breathing. Forget the rest for now."
But Elara couldn't forget.
Her body betrayed her again, the bile rising once more with a violent lurch.
– SPILL.
She vomited again, harder this time, the force wracking her thin frame.
Her whole body shook as if she were freezing, her knees buckling until Cedric caught her—one arm bracing her around the shoulders, the other steadying her waist.
"It's alright," he whispered, voice low and steady against the storm raging inside her. "It's alright. Let it out."
He wasn't sure if he was talking about the sickness or the grief anymore.
Elara clutched at the cloth blindly, the cool marble beneath her cheek the only anchor she could feel.
Lucavion.
Luca.
The boy who had stolen her dreams.
And the boy who had given them back, only to tear them apart again.
The betrayal tasted worse than the bile.
And still, her body kept shaking, hollow and raw, long after there was nothing left to give.
****
The carriage wheels hummed against the ancient stones, each bump a muted drumbeat in the quiet before change. Morning mist clung stubbornly to the hillsides, curling in ghostly tendrils around the narrow road that wound toward destiny.
Inside the carriage, the girl sat perfectly still. The velvet cushions beneath her shifted with the ride's gentle sway, but she was unbothered. She watched the world slip by through a sliver of open curtain—gray fields, distant spires, the blurred memory of home long abandoned.
A soft knock at the door broke the silence.
"Milady," came the attendant's careful voice. "We are approaching Arcanis."
The name fell into the carriage like a stone into deep water—reverberating, sinking.
The girl smiled then.
A smile that did hid her thoughts completely.
Yet her lavender eyes showed the glint of intelligence.
"Finally."
Chapter 660: The scar is gone
The third day of the Candidate Trials.
Another tea party.
Another room spun from gold and glass.
Valeria stood at the entrance for a moment longer than necessary, her gaze sweeping the space. Different hosts this time. Different sigils woven into the silken banners draping the walls. But the feeling? The same.
Elegant nobles perched in cushioned chairs, sipping from crystal glasses and laughing with the calculated ease of predators at rest. Servants floated by with trays of imported fruits and delicate pastries spelled to remain eternally fresh. In the center, once again, the familiar sight: a wide, suspended scrying orb, its mirrored surface displaying shifting glimpses of the ongoing Candidate Trials.
The forest-like arena had changed—less vibrant now. The ground looked torn, the trees thinner, darker. Fewer candidates moved through the space. The culling was well underway.
Valeria stepped fully into the salon.
She knew what this was.
The last gathering had taught her well enough.
The conversations at the Valcarrini event had been pleasant, in the way a wolf bares its teeth in the snow and calls it a smile. Connections had been formed — in name. In appearance.
But they were threads of spider silk: delicate, performative, and ultimately meaningless.
She had not been one of them.
Not truly.
And they had known it.
Her house's sudden rise, buoyed by the arm of Marquis Vendor, did not change the reality that the Olarion name had faded from true prominence long ago. To these nobles, she was tolerated, watched — but never truly welcomed.
Valeria moved to a seat near the edge of the arrangement, exchanging the necessary nods with the gathering. Familiar faces here and there. Houses with old bloodlines and older grudges. The air was ripe with courtly conversation—measured, delicate, and utterly false.
She folded her hands over her lap, posture flawless.
If they would play at civility, so would she.
A young man, dressed in deep green formalwear with the insignia of House Bartolini, offered a pleasant smile. "Lady Olarion. A pleasure."
"Lord Bartolini," she replied with the faintest inclination of her head.
The pleasantries circled the room, a dance of obligation. Valeria gave them what they expected—enough to be seen, not enough to be claimed.
And all the while, she listened.
Snippets of conversation floated around her.
"The commoner girl with the shadow-forged daggers—did you see her leap? Primitive, but effective…"
"They fight like beasts. If not for the enchantments keeping them alive, half would be corpses already."
"Astonishing, isn't it? What desperation breeds."
Laughter. Polished and brittle.
Valeria said nothing.
She focused on the scrying projection.
A battle unfolded below the floating vantage. Two boys, both unmarked by noble crests, fighting near a shattered ley tree. One wielded a battered polearm, the other a thin rapier that sparked with unstable magic.
Neither fought like a "beast."
They fought like survivors.
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
Resilient. Adaptive.
Qualities the people around her would never understand.
The host of today's gathering, Lady Renata Ferani, eventually rose to offer her welcome—a vision in silver-draped velvet, her voice poised and resonant.
"We gather today," she said smoothly, "to celebrate excellence—both that which has been proven… and that which has yet to be refined."
Another thinly veiled phrase.
Another reminder: you are not one of us.
Valeria accepted it without flinching.
It was a familiar weight.
Better the clean cut of exclusion than the poisoned dagger of false warmth.
As the conversations resumed and wagers were quietly exchanged about the fates of the contenders, Valeria leaned back slightly in her chair, her gaze steady on the flickering scenes below.
Let them laugh.
The trials were not yet over.
And the ones they mocked might yet carve a future with blood and grit — a future no gilded tea salon could stop.
The scrying orb shifted.
For a heartbeat, the projection blurred—then sharpened into a wide forest clearing.
A boy stood alone.
A battered black coat. Dark, wind-stirred hair. And perched lazily on his shoulder, a snow-white cat, watching the world with indifferent eyes.
Valeria froze.
Her breath caught, silent and sharp.
Her back remained straight, her expression composed—but her heart slammed against her ribs like a fist against iron.
She knew.
Even before the name would appear.
She knew.
The nobles around her murmured idly, unaware of the weight that had just dropped into her chest.
"Another commoner?"
"He looks—strange. Unimpressive."
Someone chuckled. "Probably another who'll be weeded out before evening."
Valeria barely heard them.
Her eyes locked onto the figure moving across the clearing with that unmistakable, maddening calm. Every step measured. Every shift natural.
Lucavion.
Even from this distance, even through the layers of broadcast distortion, she could tell.
But something else caught her eye.
She leaned in slightly, hardly aware she was doing it.
The scar.
The ugly, jagged scar that had once slashed across his right eye—gone.
Not faded.
Gone.
As if he had peeled away that piece of history and left it behind.
Transformed.
Sharper now. Cleaner. Deadlier.
The orb shimmered, the view widening to reveal the battlefield around him.
The remnants of a Warden-class Beast lay crumpled nearby—its crystal core shattered, its armored limbs twisted unnaturally.
Gasps rippled through the tea salon.
A few nobles straightened, craning their necks to get a better look.
Someone to Valeria's left let out a low whistle, amusement coloring his voice. "Did he already bring down the Warden? Hah. Quick work for a stray."
Another, seated closer to the host's circle, laughed lightly behind her hand. "Luck, surely. The creature was probably already weakened by others. That's how these sorts survive—by scavenging the efforts of their betters."
"Fast, though," another admitted with a shrug, lifting a jeweled glass to his lips. "I'll give him that. At least he knows how to run."
The laughter that followed was soft, polished—designed to be heard without ever sounding crude.
Valeria didn't move.
Not even when a particularly smug voice closer to her mused aloud, "Mark my words, he'll fold against real opponents. Tricks like that only work until the real contenders show up."
She sat still, letting their words pass over her like a current over stone.
But inside—
Inside, she burned.
Not with anger.
Not even with scorn.
But with a sharper, colder certainty.
They have no idea.
She watched Lucavion adjust the white cat on his shoulder with an idle flick of his fingers, as if bored with the battlefield already, as if the Warden had been a minor inconvenience rather than a threat meant to thin the ranks of hundreds.
There was no visible strain in his movements.
No triumph.
Only that same calm.
That same damnable ease.
Valeria's lips pressed into a thin line.
He hasn't changed, she thought, though the truth prickled at the edges of the thought.
He had changed.
The scar gone.
The roughness tempered into something more lethal.
He had shed the marks of his survival like old armor—and now walked into this gilded deathmatch as if it were merely another evening stroll.
She could hear the nobles around her still talking, still weaving their little theories and casual dismissals.
None of them saw it.
Not really.
But she did.
And deep down, Valeria knew—
Lucavion wasn't surviving this tournament.
He was measuring it.
Chapter 661: He is here
The forest clearing on the scrying orb shifted again.
The broadcast, enchanted to highlight high-profile engagements, zoomed closer. Details sharpened. Mana signatures flared.
Another figure stepped into view, just beyond the broken grove where Lucavion stood.
The girl moved like smoke wrapped in silver—her cloak trailing behind her in measured, dancer-like motions. Twin daggers gleamed at her hips. Mana flickered at her fingertips, wrapping her in layered illusions, so fine they barely disturbed the world around her.
Above the projection, gilded script unfurled in brilliant arcane letters:
Candidate: Elayne Cors
Title: Blade of Nothing
A ripple of noise passed through the salon.
Whispers. Murmurs. Sharp inhalations.
"Elayne Cors... she's here."
"The Blade of Nothing, they call her."
"She defeated three ranked candidates on the first day without so much as a visible spellcast."
"A phantom with blades."
The nobles shifted forward in their chairs, suddenly paying far closer attention.
The easy, dismissive chatter from before was gone, replaced with a sharp, almost greedy focus.
"Now this will be a real duel," someone muttered under their breath, excitement trembling beneath the words.
Valeria sat straighter in her seat, though her movements were unhurried, composed. Her gaze never wavered from the scrying disc.
She watched Lucavion.
Still standing.
Still relaxed.
Still every inch the reckless fool she remembered—except now, more dangerous, more precise, as if the rough edges of the boy she once knew had been filed down into a blade that could gut a lion before it knew it was bleeding.
The duel began in a blink.
Elayne's illusions twisted the battlefield—clones splitting from her form, bursts of mirrored movement scattering across the clearing like shards of a broken mirror.
Most opponents would have hesitated.
Lucavion didn't.
He moved not with hesitation, but inevitability.
Ducking, pivoting, parrying—threading through her attacks like a river finding its bed.
He didn't chase the illusions. He didn't fall for the flickers of false motion.
He felt her.
Tracked the ripple of her intent, the rhythm of her heartbeat, even beneath her mana-crafted silence.
The nobles whispered furiously now, confusion bleeding into frustration.
"He's reading her…"
"That's not possible—her illusions should have masked everything."
"He's—he's predicting her movements before she even attacks."
The duel blurred into a symphony of clashes—steel on steel, illusion against instinct.
And still, Lucavion stayed ahead.
No grand explosions. No wasted flourishes.
Just quiet, relentless dismantling.
And for the first time in the entire gathering, Valeria let herself smile.
It was small.
Brief.
But real.
Seeing him like this—irritatingly composed, defying everything the others thought they understood—it was like breathing a different kind of air after months underground.
A reminder of why he had always been so... impossible.
And why she had missed him more than she realized.
Not because of the power.
Not because of the danger.
But because, around Lucavion, life had always been just a little more alive.
More reckless.
More full of possibility.
She leaned back in her seat, ignoring the frantic wagers now being whispered from table to table, the growing tension among the nobles.
They didn't know what they were watching.
But she did.
She always had.
And as she watched Lucavion step through Elayne's last desperate illusion and disarm her cleanly—without rage, without cruelty, just a simple, merciless efficiency—Valeria thought:
Welcome back, you idiot.
The scrying orb flickered gently above the tea salon, its image freezing for a breath—Lucavion standing effortlessly victorious, the Blade of Nothing already retreating into the shadows of the woods, her illusions broken and scattered like dust in the wake of a storm.
A heavy silence had fallen over the nobles.
But it didn't last.
It couldn't.
Pride didn't allow silence.
And neither did wounded investment.
"Well," Lord Bartolini drawled lightly, swirling the wine in his goblet as if weighing the bitterness on his tongue. "It was an interesting match, if nothing else. A... fortunate encounter."
"Indeed," Lady Renata Ferani added, smoothing the folds of her silver-trimmed gown. "But really, Elayne wasn't fully prepared. She had already spent days exhausting herself against the others. It's hardly a fair measure."
Another woman across the circle—Lady Fiorenza Altamari, whose family had been quite vocal about intending to 'sponsor' Elayne—leaned forward slightly, her voice sweet with poisoned grace.
"The boy is quick, I'll grant him that. But truly, anyone relying on sheer instinct is bound to be revealed when the real examinations begin. Strategy and stamina decide true power, not showy counterattacks."
A few around her murmured agreement, eager to bury their discomfort under layered justifications.
Anything to avoid admitting that a nameless boy—without crest, lineage, or patron—had just shattered their illusions.
Valeria said nothing.
She didn't need to.
Her smile—small, unconscious, and utterly genuine—spoke enough.
And it was noticed.
Lord Bartolini's gaze flicked toward her, catching the rare shift in her otherwise composed features. His brows lifted slightly in amusement.
"Well now, Lady Olarion," he drawled, voice carrying a slight edge. "You seem... entertained."
A few heads turned.
Lady Fiorenza tilted her head, her pearls catching the light like droplets of milk. "Indeed. Have you found something funny?"
Valeria blinked once, the weight of their stares registering a moment too late.
Her smile vanished instantly, smoothing into the neutral, polished expression she wore so easily.
She reached for her teacup with steady fingers, taking a slow sip before answering—perfectly measured, perfectly cool.
"I simply remembered something," she said.
The truth, but shaped into something harmless.
Fiorenza's lips curled in a faint, polite smirk.
"Oh?" she pressed lightly. "A memory sparked by such... unsophisticated swordplay?"
The bait was obvious.
But Valeria only tilted her head slightly, letting the smile she should have worn earlier play faintly at the edge of her lips—sharp and unreadable.
Then another voice—one of the younger noble girls, a recent debutante eager to score a social blow—giggled softly into her hand and chimed in:
"Well, surely compared to the standards of House Olarion's swordsmanship, this must have looked like a child's squabble, no?"
More polite laughter circled the group.
Valeria set her teacup down with a soft click.
She didn't bristle. Didn't rise.
She simply turned her gaze—slowly, lazily—to the scrying orb above them.
Lucavion stood there still, adjusting the white cat on his shoulder, utterly unbothered by the storm he had just left in his wake.
A child's squabble?
Valeria's fingers rested lightly on the rim of her teacup, unmoving. Her gaze remained on the scrying orb, though she barely saw the gentle ripples of projected mana anymore.
Instead, she saw something else.
Andelheim.
Dust in the air. The ring of steel. The roar of a crowd too stunned to speak.
Lucavion—then a nameless, coat-tattered fighter, standing alone against three of the Sect's proudest disciples, dismantling them not with brute force or flashy magic, but with the blade alone.
That was the day the whispers had begun.
Sword Demon.
A nickname born not from flattery, but from disbelief. From fear.
A title carved by watching nobles and wandering mercenaries alike, when they realized—
He didn't fight like a duelist.
He fought like something born to the blade.
Valeria had seen it firsthand.
Felt it, once, when she had foolishly drawn steel against him in the training fields on a whim.
A single exchange had been all it took.
Not because she had been weak—she wasn't.
But because he was something else.
Lucavion moved with a rhythm that slipped past logic and theory.
He fought not by textbook forms, not by noble schools refined over generations, but by pure, instinctive mastery—a primal elegance shaped by battlefields, not ballrooms.
No one she had ever met—not in the courts, not in the armies, not even among the so-called sword saints who polished their reputations like armor—could match that raw, unshakable dominance in pure swordplay.
And yet—
Here they were.
Tittering into their gloves.
Scoffing at a man who could cut their pride apart in less than a breath.
Valeria lowered her gaze briefly to her lap, her expression serene.
But inside, the thought struck her so sharply it almost made her laugh:
Even speaking of him in the same breath as your polished courtiers' "swordsmanship" is an insult to the blade itself.
She breathed in slowly, smoothing the impulse into perfect calm.
'Well, whatever.'
Currently, she was really happy to see him here.
'There is no way he would lose.'
Chapter 662: Anger
The day bled into twilight.
Lucavion stood still at the center of the ruins, the once-lush garden-temple now marred with the evidence of endless conflict. Cracked stones, broken weapons, craters gouged from desperate spellfire. The scent of scorched mana and churned soil hung thick in the air.
And bodies.
Not dead—this wasn't that kind of bloodsport. But the number of contestants who lay disqualified by his hand… well, it was beginning to look like a battlefield all the same.
More than one hundred.
He had counted loosely, somewhere between dodging a flame-slinger's barrage and snapping the mana core of a would-be champion with one thrust of his estoc.
Each wave had been the same—desperate, hopeful, vicious. Contestants drawn to the pillar's bounty, unwilling to recognize the inevitability that awaited them.
And Lucavion?
He had carved through them, one by one.
By now, his coat was torn at the sleeves, his gloves cut along the fingers, faint trickles of blood seeping through shallow wounds along his arms and neck. His breathing was even, but heavier than usual—not from pain. From exertion.
Even iron wears thin after so many strikes.
[Finally,] Vitaliara murmured, her voice edged with concern and amusement both, [you look like you fought an army.]
He flexed his hand once, rotating his wrist, feeling the dull ache ripple down his tendons.
"I did fight an army," he muttered.
And at last—
The sky shifted again.
From above, a soft shimmer descended like falling petals. A mana barrier—circular, translucent, pale gold—enveloped him, sealing him inside a protective dome that shimmered with intricate runework.
He tilted his head back, letting the cool pulse of the barrier wash over him. It wasn't aggressive. It was... acknowledgment.
The system had recognized it.
Lucavion— Zone Lord of the Verdant Sanctuary.
A subtle pulse of mana thrummed through the earth at his feet, and the pillar that had anchored the relic dimmed slightly, stabilizing into a soft, controlled glow. The chaos had ended—for now.
A new ripple of energy unfurled inside the barrier. At the center of the garden, atop a pedestal of stone knotted with ancient roots, a small, crystalline seed hovered in the air, spinning slowly. It radiated vitality so pure that even breathing near it made his exhausted muscles tighten in response.
The reward.
[Vitaliara's ears perked sharply.] [That's…]
He stepped lightly toward the relic, boots pressing softly into the moss-laden ground, eyes narrowing slightly as he studied the crystalline seed that spun lazily above the gnarled pedestal.
It pulsed—once, twice—each beat releasing a ripple of energy so pure it felt like the forest itself sighed with it. Every breath Lucavion took around it seemed sharper, cleaner, more awake.
And yet—
He frowned.
He didn't recognize it.
No fragment of memory stirred from the novel. No lines of ancient lore whispered in the back of his mind. Whatever this was, it wasn't something he could call by name.
Vitaliara's claws flexed slightly on his shoulder. [It smells like... life itself,] she whispered, almost reverently. [But not like me. Different. Denser. Wilder.]
He said nothing, just tilted his head slightly, studying the delicate structure as it spun. The crystalline edges shimmered with veins of emerald and gold, and within its heart, something moved—like a seed of flame wrapped in vine.
Then—
—zzzt—
Mana threads coiled into existence before him, as if plucked straight from the air. Thin strands of condensed aether twisted into neat, glowing script, forming words just an arm's length away.
[Verdant Core Seed]
Classification: Domain Relic Fragment
Origin: Verdant Sanctuary Zone Heart
Properties: High-density life essence; grants accelerated recovery, enhanced vitality circulation, and permanent core refinement potential.
Warning: Requires stabilization before absorption. Failure to meet core expansion thresholds may result in internal rupture. Recommended for users approaching or beyond the 4-star to 5-star transition.
Lucavion's brows lifted slightly, a rare flicker of real intrigue flashing across his face.
"Well," he muttered, folding his arms, "someone put effort into the presentation."
Vitaliara leaned closer, reading along. [Mana threads woven into written guidance... the mages managing this space are thorough.]
He tapped his gloved fingers against his arm, thoughtful.
The Verdant Core Seed. A relic fragment meant for core evolution. A treasure of true rarity, even outside of controlled trial spaces. Yet...
Lucavion exhaled slowly, letting his senses extend inward.
He could feel it—the vast, pressurized reservoir now sitting within him after the Life Origin Seed's earlier absorption. His mana channels had expanded, deepened, but they were still heavy with unused potential. His core shimmered at the peak of 4-star rank, dense and flexible, on the cusp of a breakthrough.
On the cusp... but not there yet.
And the Verdant Core Seed wasn't something you used lightly.
If he absorbed it now—without first pushing his core to the very threshold of collapse—it would be wasted, leaking through the cracks like pouring fine wine into a fractured glass.
Vitaliara's gaze flicked up at him. [You're not taking it now, are you.]
Lucavion smiled faintly, shaking his head. "No point."
[Good.] Her voice softened. [It would've hurt to watch you squander it.]
He chuckled under his breath and turned from the relic, the mana threads dissolving silently into the air once more.
Instead, he crossed back to a smoother patch of moss, settling down with deliberate slowness, his coat pooling around him like a shadow stitched to the earth.
He let the hum of the Verdant Sanctuary's life-mana lull his body into stillness. His hands rested lightly on his knees, sword laid across his lap—not in readiness for battle, but in quiet acceptance.
Tomorrow…
Things were bound to change.
"Fourth-day, huh…..Shall we…"
He closed his eyes, his breathing evening out, his pulse slow and deliberate, merging with the soft, rhythmic beat of the sanctuary around him.
For tonight, he would rest.
******
The chamber was dim, lit only by a cluster of hanging mana-crystals that flickered irregularly—cheap enchantments, bought from back-alley artificers too proud to admit their wares were flawed. The air was stale with the sour scent of frustration, and the heavy curtains drawn against the afternoon sun made the place feel smaller, more suffocating.
Reynard paced across the cracked marble floor, his boots scraping in agitated rhythm.
"Find him," he growled, voice low, sharp. "Find the little bastard who ruined everything."
His lackeys—three boys in House Crane's colors, all wearing the same anxious stiffness—stood at attention near the far wall, avoiding his gaze.
"We… we tried, sir," stammered one, barely older than sixteen. "But—he vanished after the terrace. No records. No retainer claims him. No one knows his name."
Reynard stopped pacing.
Turned.
His gaze—cold, pale, and brittle—pinned the speaker in place.
"Tried?" Reynard echoed, the word dripping contempt. "Tried is for dogs and beggars. We had him under our thumb! The princess humiliated—right before the whole court—and now nothing?"
The lackeys shrank back, exchanging nervous glances.
Reynard exhaled sharply through his nose, struggling for control.
They were supposed to have left her bleeding—politically and publicly. A royal disgrace, easy to dismiss, easy to shove aside when the academy term began. That was the plan.
Instead?
The terrace had erupted into silence and doubt, and Reynard had walked away with nothing but questions buzzing around his ears and his uncle's whispered disappointment searing into his skull.
The scry-projection across the room flickered. A new update rolled across its surface, drawing his attention.
Reynard's eyes narrowed.
The academy entrance trials.
Zone Twelve.
He turned toward it fully, more to distract himself than out of any real interest. Another cluster of candidates, another round of posturing and petty fights.
Until—
He saw it.
The clearing.
The relic tree.
The black coat.
The cat.
For a moment, Reynard didn't move. Didn't even blink.
Then, slowly, his fingers curled into a fist at his side.
"That's him," he said, voice low, hoarse.
His lackeys jolted to attention, startled. "What—?"
"That's him!" Reynard barked, jabbing a finger at the image where Lucavion stood, sword glinting cold under the fading light.
The camera orb zoomed closer, capturing the scene unfolding—Elayne Cors, the prodigy assassin-in-training, launching a masterful assault.
And the boy—
No, Lucavion—
Meeting it without so much as blinking.
The fight played out in a few brutal heartbeats. Counters perfect. Movement effortless. And then Elayne retreating—the mighty Elayne Cors, fleeing into the trees.
The projection shuddered slightly, the mana-crystals dimming and flaring in awe.
And under the victorious silhouette, the name burned itself into gold-light script.
Candidate – Name: Lucavion.
Reynard's jaw tightened so hard his teeth creaked.
"Lucavion…" he spat the name like poison.
One of the lackeys swallowed audibly. "Sir… he's… he's participating in the entrance trials."
"No house," another noted, almost relieved. "No title, no backing. Just a stray."
Reynard's eyes gleamed, predatory.
"A stray who needs to be put down," he said softly.
The lackeys stiffened, sensing the shift in his tone—the way a storm built before the first crack of thunder.
He couldn't touch Lucavion now. Not during the trials. Not while the eyes of the Academy and the Empire both were watching.
But afterward?
Afterward, there would be no rules to shield him.
Afterward, the academy would become his hunting ground.
And Lucavion—
He would learn exactly what it meant to humiliate a son of House Crane.
Reynard turned back to the screen, watching as Lucavion sheathed his blade with slow, casual grace—completely at ease.
The sight made his blood boil.
"Enjoy your little victories while you can," Reynard murmured, voice cold enough to crack glass. "Because when the games truly begin…"
He smiled.
And it wasn't a nice smile.
"…I'll make sure you never walk these halls again."
Chapter 663: Zone lord
The morning came quietly.
Lucavion stirred before the first false rays of dawn broke through the fabricated heavens, his senses pulling him from the deep, almost unnatural sleep he had fallen into. His eyes opened without urgency, black irises cutting through the thin mist that clung low across the Sanctuary's floor.
He inhaled.
The air was different. Richer, somehow. It soaked into his lungs like silk, leaving a faint, vibrating sharpness along the edges of his ribs. His body felt... good. Not just rested, but tuned. Balanced to a degree he hadn't realized was possible.
He sat up slowly, feeling no stiffness, no lingering fatigue. The shallow cuts across his arms and neck were already healed, new skin faintly pink where there had been blood only hours before.
'A healing enchantment,' he thought, noting the faint pulse of energy that clung to his skin like a second, invisible coat. 'Subtle, but thorough.'
He reached out with his senses, brushing against the mana flows around him.
And paused.
There it was—woven into the very air itself.
A secondary field of magic: intricate, careful, impossible to ignore once noticed. It wasn't suppressing him. It wasn't spying, either.
It was marking him.
'Oh,' he mused, his mouth curling slightly at the corners. 'An enchantment.'
Zone Lords weren't just recognized by the trial's systems in name alone, it seemed. They carried a signature—subtle to the average participant, glaring to anyone sharp enough to notice. A faint distortion around the skin, like heat haze, a visible signal to anyone watching closely that he had claimed territory.
'Benefits and drawbacks,' he thought lazily, running a gloved hand through his hair as he stood.
The benefit was obvious—he would be left alone by the system's automated trials for now. A period of enforced rest, accelerated recovery, rewards later on.
The drawback?
Every cadet still breathing on this accursed battlefield would now know exactly what he was.
A Zone Lord.
A walking bounty.
A threat.
He turned his gaze upward, toward the fake sunrise beginning to break across the fabricated sky. The horizon shimmered faintly with the shift in phase—subtle, like a curtain being pulled back on a grand stage.
The next phase of the exam would start soon.
And he?
He had just been handed a bigger target painted square across his back.
Lucavion stretched once, languidly, feeling the quiet crackle of strength along his muscles. His estoc hummed faintly against his back, resonating with the tuned state of his body. Everything—everything—felt poised on the edge of something larger.
He chuckled under his breath, voice low and amused.
"Heh... quite crafty," he mumbled, more to himself than anyone else.
Vitaliara, half-curled along his shoulders in a lazy sprawl, cracked open one eye. [Notice the trap, but still walk into it, hmm?]
Lucavion gave a lazy shrug, feeling Vitaliara's tail flick against the side of his neck like a whip of mild irritation.
"Walking into traps is an art form," he said airily, adjusting the strap of his estoc with casual precision. "You should be honored to witness it."
[Vitaliara snorted, the sound delicate and unimpressed.] [I'll be sure to remember that when you're buried under a mountain of idiots trying to claim your head.]
He smirked, tilting his head just enough to glance at her out of the corner of his eye. "Please. If a mountain of idiots is all it takes to kill me, I deserve to be buried."
[You're impossible,] she sighed, though there was no real heat behind it. [Even when you're technically right.]
Lucavion's steps were unhurried as he made his way toward the Sanctuary's outer edges. The mist thinned, and the terrain began to shift—less dense forest, more broken plains with veins of crystal and twisted, dead trees marking the way.
As he walked, his mind ticked over the numbers with detached precision.
'Around a thousand left. Maybe five hundred, if yesterday's slaughter was as thorough elsewhere as it was here.'
He clicked his tongue softly, not out of worry but calculation.
The original count had been massive—nearly ten thousand. But after three brutal days, and the shift into localized trials, the battlefield had changed drastically.
The weak were gone. The reckless, the hopeful, the arrogant—culled by time and desperation.
Now, only the ones worth noticing remained.
But even that wasn't enough.
Lucavion tilted his head slightly, feeling the faint tremor running through the ground beneath his boots—a whisper of deeper mechanics stirring awake.
'The space is preparing to shift,' he thought, sliding his gloved hand once along the estoc's hilt.
It made sense.
Too many remained.
Too much noise for the next phase.
They needed to thin the competition further—to separate the true contenders from the stragglers. And the easiest way to do that?
Force them into proximity.
Collapse the map.
Compress the field.
[You're smiling,] Vitaliara observed, her voice tinged with wariness.
"I'm always smiling when things get interesting," Lucavion said lightly, adjusting his collar against the artificial morning breeze.
Ahead, he could already see the land beginning to ripple at the horizon, like cloth folding under unseen hands. The trees in the distance shimmered, the ruins twisted, the rivers dried into cracks of barren earth.
The world was preparing to break.
The tremors deepened.
Lucavion felt it under his soles first—tiny shudders, almost polite. Then came the rumbles, splitting through the ground like something massive stirring in the earth's hollowed bones.
The moss beneath his boots cracked open, veins of raw mana seeping out like blood from a wounded god.
He exhaled once, slow and even.
'Here it comes.'
The horizon before him twisted like a reflection on broken glass. Forests folded into crumbling cliffs, the vibrant greenery scorched away as acid lakes bled across the terrain, sizzling and devouring everything in their path. The false sky above—so carefully painted to mimic a peaceful dawn—fractured. Pieces of it fell like molten shards, crashing into the ground as miniature meteors.
A normal contestant might have panicked at the sight. Screamed. Fled.
Lucavion just tilted his head, watching the spectacle unfold with clinical detachment.
"Breach Protocol," he murmured.
Vitaliara's ears flattened against her skull. [What?]
He smiled faintly, the kind of smile that tasted like secrets.
"They're forcing it," he said. "Collapsing biomes. Accelerating encounters. Entertainment for the spectators."
The outside world—academy officials, nobles, commoners—they were watching. Hungry for blood and miracles both. And the mages orchestrating the trial were more than happy to oblige.
Massive constructs—golems stitched together from prototype cores—lumbered through the shattered landscape, their bodies half-metal, half-mana, eyes glowing with unstable power. Some resembled beasts of iron, others twisted mockeries of knights and dragons, wandering without pattern save for one primal directive:
Hunt.
The Sanctuary's once pristine edges were already torn apart. Acid trails burned through what had been forest. Entire mountain ranges folded inward, crumbling under invisible hands, the stone liquefying into jagged rivers of half-formed terrain.
And from the north—
The first monster wave.
Lucavion caught the tremor in the air before the beasts even appeared—dozens, maybe hundreds, of twisted creatures flooding the collapsed fields. Hybrid horrors, pieced together by wild mana: scaled wolves, horned serpents, birdlike abominations stitched with stone and vine.
From the east, another surge.
And from behind him—the space was compressing like a noose tightening around his throat. The false horizon rolled inward, a wall of shimmering distortion advancing relentlessly, swallowing anything left behind.
[We can't stay.]
"No," Lucavion agreed, stepping lightly to the side as a falling star smashed into the ground where he had stood a second ago, sending up a plume of molten debris.
Candidates could no longer afford to camp. The map was a battlefield now. A crucible.
Only the ones who moved forward—relentlessly—had any chance of surviving.
Lucavion flexed his fingers, feeling the hum of power along his sharpened veins, his tuned body humming with readiness.
'Middle zone,' he thought.
The only relative safety left—the eye of the storm.
That was where he had to go.
He adjusted the strap of his estoc again, casual as a man preparing for an evening stroll, and began to walk—
Straight into the collapsing, screaming chaos.
Chapter 664: Breach Protocol
The morning light broke soft and gold across the city's old stones, but the table at the inn's private courtyard felt off without her.
Aurelian kicked at the worn flagstones under his boot, watching the lazy swirl of his untouched tea. Selphine sat across from him, back straight as always, her plate barely touched, gaze distant.
Neither of them said anything for a while.
The festival banners still fluttered overhead, whispering in the late summer breeze. Somewhere down the street, the sound of a market bell rang out, bright and cheerful. It felt out of place. Too light.
Finally, Aurelian sighed and leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. "She's still not coming down?"
"No," Selphine said, her voice clipped. "And she told the staff to refuse anyone at her door."
He grimaced. "Gods. Not even a note?"
Selphine shook her head. "Just that she was 'resting.' And to leave her be."
The word resting tasted like a lie between them both. Not the kind Elara told often—she was too sharp, too self-contained for that kind of deception—but the kind you said when you needed to put a wall up fast before something broke inside you.
Aurelian picked up a slice of spiced bread, then dropped it again without taking a bite. He exhaled through his nose.
"It's about him, isn't it?" he said quietly, voice low enough that no passerby would catch it.
Selphine didn't answer right away. She traced the rim of her cup once, absently, before replying. "Lucavion."
The name hung there for a moment, unsaid and yet heavy.
"That was what she called him," Aurelian continued. "The boy with the cat. The estoc. The one who made her—" he hesitated, searching for the right word. "Change."
Selphine's eyes flickered—something unreadable flashing through the ice-blue depths—but her voice remained smooth. "It's not like she spoke about him often."
"No," Aurelian agreed. "But you could see it. In the way she flinched when certain names came up. In the way she looked at the scrying field yesterday... like the past had just climbed out of the grave."
He folded his arms over his chest, frowning into the sunlight.
"I didn't think Elowyn could look like that."
Aurelian leaned back further in his chair, his arms folding tight across his chest, eyes narrowing against the soft noon light that bled through the courtyard.
"To us," he said slowly, like each word had to be weighed before leaving his mouth, "Elowyn always seemed… unshakable."
Selphine nodded once, a sharp tilt of her chin. "Confident."
"Prideful," Aurelian added, a half-smirk ghosting over his face. "But in a way you couldn't hate her for. She earned it. She knew she was good."
"She is good," Selphine corrected mildly.
"She's smart, too," Aurelian said, tapping a finger idly against the side of his cup. "Talking magic with her... it's like trying to keep pace with a river when you're still learning how to swim."
There was a thread of fondness in his voice, unhidden.
Selphine's lips pressed into something that wasn't quite a smile. "I always thought nothing could rattle her," she said. "Not nobles. Not trial combat. Not even facing down half the council."
Aurelian exhaled, shaking his head in disbelief. "And then we saw her yesterday. The way she—" He stopped himself, fingers curling slightly against the rim of his cup. "The way her face changed."
The two of them sat in silence for a moment, listening to the distant hum of festival-goers, the laughter of children somewhere beyond the inn's stone walls.
"She looked like someone who'd seen a ghost," Selphine said finally, voice soft.
Aurelian glanced at her sideways. "What do you think he was to her? Lucavion?"
Selphine's fingers tightened briefly around her cup, her gaze cutting sharply across the courtyard. She was quiet for a beat longer than necessary.
"I don't know," she said at last. "And I don't think we're meant to. Not yet."
There was no judgment in her tone. Just understanding.
Maybe even a little pity.
Aurelian sighed, raking a hand through his hair again until it stood messily askew. "Yeah," he muttered. "You're right. If she wanted to tell us, she would have."
Selphine inclined her head, the matter sealed between them with the finality of a blade sheathed.
They would not pry.
Not because they weren't curious—stars above, they were—but because something about the way Elara had disappeared behind her own door said more than any explanation ever could.
Some wounds weren't ready for air.
Some storms had to pass alone.
And so, without further word, they let the conversation drift away like smoke, lost to the afternoon breeze.
Waiting.
Waiting for her to come back to them in her own time.
Aurelian finally sat back with a resigned sigh, reaching for the spiced bread he'd abandoned earlier. "Well," he said, tearing a piece free, "no point in brooding over ghosts."
Selphine lifted her cup again, her posture relaxing by a hair's breadth. "Agreed. We might as well enjoy what's left of the festival."
The decision, unspoken but mutual, settled over them easily. They turned their focus back to their plates—the careful arrangement of roasted meats, sweet-salted fruits, and soft breads that had grown cool in the morning light.
Beyond the courtyard, the city continued in full splendor. Festooned with banners of deep crimson and gold, Arcania thrummed like a living heart, every street pulsing with music, laughter, and the low crackle of festival magic. Phoenix motes drifted lazily overhead, little flares of mana given form, as artisans hawked their creations and children wove spell-threaded charms into their hair.
They ate slowly, savoring the quiet, savoring the sliver of peace that the afternoon offered.
"It's strange to think," Aurelian said after a while, wiping his hands on a cloth, "that the entrance exams will be over in just a few more days."
Selphine nodded. "According to the officials, five more days at most. They'll wrap up by the full moon."
"And after that…" Aurelian's smile turned a little sly. "The Academy's Opening Banquet."
Selphine's mouth twitched, almost a smile. "Where the nobles get to pretend they aren't terrified of the commoners they just admitted."
Aurelian laughed under his breath. "Not just the commoners. This year's different."
Selphine's gaze sharpened. "You mean the Loria delegation."
He nodded. "Students from the Loria Empire. Royals, no less. Arcanis managed to finalize the treaties, so now they're sending their first wave of 'promising heirs' to integrate into our Academy."
Selphine's fingers tapped once against her cup. "And they'll be at the Banquet."
"Along with the highest-performing candidates from the entrance exams," Aurelian added. "The best of the commoners. The heirs of the Great Houses. And now... royalty from Loria."
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. "A convergence like that? It's not just about celebration. It's a statement. A warning and an invitation, wrapped up in wine and pleasantries."
Selphine's expression remained cool, but her eyes gleamed. "A powder keg waiting for a spark."
Aurelian chuckled low, shaking his head. "A powder keg, she says. Listen to us. We sound like bad poets at a funeral."
Selphine allowed herself a small, sharp laugh, tipping her cup slightly in a mock-toast. "If the world insists on giving us drama, we might as well narrate it properly."
Their quiet amusement bled out into full laughter between the two of them, easy and sharp-edged, like old friends who found a grim kind of comedy in the inevitable.
A few festival-goers at nearby tables turned to stare—some blinking over half-finished drinks, others exchanging looks that said 'Who in the stars are these poetic weirdos?'
One little girl even leaned toward her mother and whispered, "Are they actors?"
Aurelian caught it and grinned wider, tossing Selphine an exaggerated, conspiratorial look. She just sipped her tea coolly, utterly unbothered.
Their laughter faded naturally into the afternoon breeze—and just as it did, the illusion screens around the square flickered.
The background music—soft harp strings piped through enchanted conduits—stuttered.
Then—
A sharp, clean chime echoed from every broadcast tower.
The illusion feeds stabilized, the image sharpening into view, and across the top of the projection burned a new set of sigils, glowing a deep, ominous crimson:
[BREACH PROTOCOL: ACTIVE]
The exam suddenly became hard for everyone.