Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 882: Main (2)

The conversation settled for a moment, the gentle clatter of carriage wheels filling the silence like the ticking of some patient, invisible clock.

It was Marian who broke it, voice light. “Well. Banquet or battlefield, I suppose they both serve their purpose. Still—tonight was something, wasn’t it?”

Aurelian gave a dry snort. “Gilded peacocks performing rituals of dominance with wine and violins? Classic.”

“No,” Selphine said, tone measured. “It wasn’t classic. Not this time.”

The silence that followed Selphine’s words was the kind that filled lungs instead of ears.

Aurelian leaned forward slightly, his casual posture gone. Dellen stopped chewing. Even the twins glanced up in sync, for once not theatrical but simply still.

Because they all understood what she meant.

Not classic. Not routine.

Because Lucavion existed.

“I still can’t believe it was declared a draw,” Dellen muttered, eyes wide, as if replaying the moment again behind his gaze. “That wasn’t a duel. That was… I don’t know what that was.”

“Revelation,” Selphine murmured, echoing Valeria’s unspoken word from the terrace. “He tore something open.”

Elara didn’t speak. She didn’t have to. She could still feel the residue of it—the echo of blade meeting blade not as contest, but as declaration.

Marian exhaled sharply, the awe still bright in her face. “Rowen’s final form—I didn’t even know the body could do that. It looked like he was dancing with the air.”

“And Lucavion shattered it like it was porcelain.” Aurelian’s voice was lower now, threaded with something that sounded disturbingly close to admiration. “With a movement that wasn’t even elegant. Just… right.”

“It wasn’t supposed to work,” Selphine said softly. “That’s the part that rattled everyone.”

Cedric, beside Elara, finally spoke again, voice like dry flint on stone. “Because it wasn’t a technique. It was an instinct.”

Elara nodded once. ’Threading the rhythm instead of following it… That was no swordplay. That was survival.’

“And it made every other duel that night look like practice drills,” Dellen added. “No offense to the rest of us.”

Aurelian scoffed. “None taken. I already scheduled training tomorrow. Seven bells.”

Marian sat back against the velvet upholstery, shaking her head slowly. “I didn’t think I’d come here to be humbled this fast.”

Selphine’s eyes flicked toward Elara again. “What did you think, Elowyn?”

For a moment, Elara was quiet, her fingers curled slightly against her skirt.

She had watched it with a kind of bone-deep recognition—Lucavion’s jagged instinct slicing through Rowen’s polished forms like a blade through silk. She’d watched nobles flinch, their pride cracking in the reflections of those blows.

But she’d felt something else too.

Not awe.

Not envy.

Hunger.

A sharp pull beneath the ribs. Not toward power—but toward truth.

“He’s effective.”

A beat.

Selphine turned slowly, brow arching. “Effective?”

“It’s not a compliment or a critique,” Elara replied, voice even. “It’s a fact.”

That earned her a low snort from Selphine. “You’re impossible to impress.”

“Or perhaps,” Aurelian said, lips twitching, “she’s just not swayed by dramatic boys and pretty swordsmanship.”

“I’d argue that wasn’t pretty,” Dellen said, still a little dazed. “It was… feral. And still perfect.”

Cedric didn’t speak, but his gaze shifted, faintly approving. He knew. Elara had always guarded herself most when she was most affected.

The conversation meandered, the energy shifting again, lighter now—but not entirely free of weight.

“Still,” Marian said, stretching slightly, “Jesse held her own. I’ll give her that.”

“From the Lorian Empire,” Aurelian added, tone more contemplative than mocking. “You’d think she’d be playing at formality and pomp. But that wasn’t play.”

Selphine gave a short nod. “No. That was grit. Pure, polished, and very real.”

“She’s not a noble in name,” Cedric said then. “Not one that carries weight here. But she fought like she had everything to prove. And didn’t flinch when proving it.”

Elara turned her gaze out the window again.

She remembered Jesse’s eyes—bright with heat, not cruelty. She remembered the way Jesse watched Lucavion—not with strategy, not with rivalry.

With history.

There had been so much in that gaze. Longing. Anger. Need. Not romantic, necessarily—but undeniably personal.

’She looked at him like she’d survived him,’ Elara thought.

And Lucavion… Lucavion hadn’t danced.

He had responded.

’He knew her rhythm. Or had once taught it.’

That truth rippled beneath the duel like an undertow.

“She might not have won,” Marian said, “but she made an impression. That’s more than most can say, going up against Lucavion twice in one evening.”

“She moved like she wasn’t afraid to lose,” Aurelian said. “That’s what caught my attention. There was no fear in her. Just fire.”

“And that,” Selphine murmured, eyes distant now, “makes her dangerous.”

Dellen gave a low whistle. “So, what you’re saying is… the Lorian delegation shouldn’t be underestimated?”

Selphine turned to him, smiling with the quiet precision of a blade sliding into its sheath.

“No one at this Academy should be.”

The carriage rolled forward, mist curling around the lanterns outside as if trying to listen in. Inside, the warmth of conversation began to fade back into thoughtfulness, the kind that marked the end of a night that had revealed too much—and yet, not nearly enough.

Elara sat still, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

Elara remained still as the last of the conversation dulled into thoughtful quiet, her gaze catching briefly on the shifting fog outside. Yet her mind, as ever, wandered elsewhere.

To Jesse.

To that second duel.

Elara wasn’t a swordswoman—not in the way Lucavion or Cedric were. She couldn’t break down parries or footwork with the trained precision of someone who’d lived by a blade. But there was something in Jesse’s movements she had recognized, even without technical fluency.

Anger.

Not the reckless kind. Not the untrained rage that made spells flare wild and strikes miss by a breath. No—this was something older. Sharper. The kind of anger that learned to bleed in rhythm, to move with elegance not in spite of pain, but because of it.

It reminded her, strangely, of Eveline. Of training in silence while her body screamed. Of learning control not as a technique, but as a religion.

Jesse’s blade shook with memory. Not fear. Not bitterness.

But history.

That was the kind of weapon Elara could understand.

She hadn’t thought she’d find kinship in a Lorian blade.

But maybe it wasn’t about where Jesse came from. Maybe it was what she’d had to survive to get here.

’Like me,’ Elara thought, as the carriage pulled to a slow, final halt.

The mana-lanterns outside cast long, symmetrical shadows up the curved archways of Block 7-A. The dormitory stood like a bastion—clean-cut stone veined with soft enchantment glow, tall windows kissed by night mist. The wards shimmered faintly along the perimeter, like thin breath on glass. There was beauty to it, but more than that—intentionality.

The students were ushered inside by two attendants in midnight-blue robes, their faces obscured by veils of light-threaded silk. Nothing overt. Just enough to remind them that here, anonymity often wore a uniform.

Elara moved quietly with the others, her steps fluid, her eyes scanning the soft marble corridors without appearing to.

Each room in 7-A was arranged along a gentle spiral curve—individual doors branching off from a main staircase that circled a central tower core. The warding sigils were subtle, woven into the seams of stone like ivy.

At the third curve, her name was read aloud.

“Elowyn Caerlin,” one of the attendants said, voice neutral. “Room seventy-two.”

Elara inclined her head in acknowledgment and stepped through the threshold.

The room was… efficient.

Stone walls, softened by floating curtains of veilmoss. A large arched window overlooking the misty garden. A desk etched with passive reinforcement runes. A bed—simple, firm, dressed in Academy colors. The air smelled faintly of mountain salt and dried parchment.

It wasn’t opulent. But it was clean. Sharp. Functional.

And for now—it was hers.

She closed the door behind her. The ward clicked into place with a soft shhhhht, sealing her into silence.

Elara leaned against the door for a moment, eyes closed.

The quiet was jarring after the din of the banquet and the low tide of conversation in the carriage. But it wasn’t unwelcome.

She toed off her shoes with slow precision, unhooked the outer layer of her gown, and sat on the edge of the bed, hands resting on her knees.

No mirrors here.

But she didn’t need one.

She knew what face she wore.

Elowyn Caerlin.

Baron’s daughter. Minor nobility. Quiet but not fragile. Watchful. Unremarkable.

And tonight, unrecognized.