Lyra Cross, a sergeant in the Ashborn Corps, first daughter of the prestigious House Cross.
A disgraced noblewoman disowned by her own family, a girl who had sailed the Devil Sea and survived.
A girl who had also survived the siege and collapse of Drakensmar. Soone who, by all rights, ought to have had legends woven around her, was now caught red-handed doing... doing... what exactly was she doing?
Lugh questioned, his gaze fixed on her lithe figure. Her cheeks were puffed up, clearly having shoved too many things into her mouth at once, and the crumbs of chocolate brown clung to her lips.
"I wovven’t shhjh!!!"
"Swallow your food first!"
The voice of the butler broke the silence with startling force. Lugh blinked, taken aback.
Disowned or not, she still carried the bloodline of the Cross family, and it was beyond unusual for a butler to raise his voice to her.
But this butler... He didn’t look like a butler at all.
The man appeared unnervingly young, his face sharp, clean, and full of the sort of youthful vigor that felt out of place in his station.
His veins bulged on his temple, a clear sign that this wasn’t the first ti he’d had to deal with Lyra’s... antics.
Lugh couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow, wondering just how far this odd relationship stretched.
Lyra, oblivious to the eyes following her every move, continued to chew in silence for a mont longer before swallowing forcefully, her fist thumping against her chest in a display of mock triumph.
Honestly, Lugh had no idea how she managed to do that. He would’ve thought her digestive system was on strike from the sheer weight of what she had just consud, yet sohow, she persisted.
Once her mouth was free of food, she imdiately started speaking with a sheepish grin, her eyes sparkling with defiance,
"I wasn’t stealing your cookies. Honest!"
The response was t with complete silence. Not one soul in the room spoke or reacted, leaving the air thick with awkwardness.
After a few long monts, Lyra began to shift her weight from foot to foot, uncomfortable under the stillness.
Then—her posture relaxed, a casual arrogance slipping into her deanor.
"Co to think of it, this is my manor. The cookies are originally mine!"
She declared, her voice rising slightly in a note of self-assuredness.
"People who ca here for free food shouldn’t judge !"
She pointed a quivering finger towards the Von Heims, and Lugh noted how the group stiffened slightly, their eyes wide with surprise.
The Von Heims were a prestigious family, powerful in their own right, and Lyra was not one to challenge them lightly—yet here she was, doing exactly that.
Lyra was dressed simply, though not without flair. Her top was snow white and sleeveless, revealing the smooth curve of her shoulders.
She wore long, baggy black trousers, clearly an attempt to channel the comfort of military leisurewear into a civilian context.
Despite their simplicity, the quality of the material was undeniable—superb and expensive, sothing beyond the reach of most common soldiers or civilians.
As for her hair, it was impossible to ignore. An extraordinary cascade of auburn, so long it nearly touched the floor.
As the Von Heims remained silent, staring in stunned disbelief, Lyra suddenly felt the weight of their collective attention pressing down on her.
She reached for her face, her fingers lightly brushing against her cheek as she muttered,
"Wh-what is it? Is there sothing on my face?"
She wiped at her lips with an awkward, distracted motion, trying to remove any remaining crumbs.
But the silence remained.
A few monts passed, and still, no one spoke. Lyra stamred, her cheeks tinged with embarrassnt now.
"Or was it the free food thing?"
She cleared her throat and added in a weak attempt at humor,
"You don’t have to take it so seriously, t-that was just a joke!"
The maid who had been closest to her, nervously clutching the remnants of her half empty tray, took a slow step backward, inching away from Lyra until she had created at least a 10-ter gap between them.
Lyra groaned internally, unable to ignore the rising tide of awkwardness. But what could she do?
Her mind wandered briefly to the duel with her father later that day. She had been keeping the specifics of her magic secret, hoping to one up him.
But now...
Now there was nothing she could do about it. If they attempted to attack she would defend herself with all she’s got.
Although she didn’t believe things would deteriorate to that level. There was also the matter of if she could win. After all the Von heims were known to have elves amongst them.
There were two won with their faces covered by veils. Those were most likely to be them.
Could she win against two elves? Emrys had been impossibly strong. Even on the verge of death he still managed to run her through with her very own sword.
While Lyra’s mind was filled with such thoughts, Lugh stood there, observing the scene with a quiet amusent.
It had beco clear to him the source of the silence. The males in the group—teens, young adults, those at the peak stages of attraction to the opposite gender—found Lyra’s presence far too stimulating.
They stood there, mouth agape, eyes glazed over in a daze. It wasn’t her outfit, nor her actions; it was her face—her features, to be exact.
Her beauty was too perfect, too unnatural. It wasn’t just the color of her eyes, the symtry of her lips, or the flawless structure of her cheekbones; it was everything.
Lyra was the embodint of sothing out of reach, sothing unreal.
Had Lugh been any less indifferent, he might have felt a tinge of the sa attraction. But Lugh had seen far too much of others like her.
Six months of consuming mystical fruits had sculpted them both into how they now looked.
The females were no better. They, too, felt the unsettling pull of envy, staring at her hair, her posture, her perfect grace. The beauty queens were caught in their own web of jealousy, silently coveting her every feature.
That left just four others.
The first, Enji, was blind, and yet, in his strange, almost otherworldly manner, he mirrored the reactions of the others.
The second, Selaphiel, was entranced by sothing else entirely. Her gaze didn’t fall on Lyra’s face or figure, but rather on the tattoos winding up her forearms.
They were no longer faded, and the patterns had been changed.
Each one was a magical rune, a mark of her arcane prowess—those tattoos had only grown since their ti on the island, becoming more powerful with each new addition.
Lugh had sothing similar. On his back by the shoulder blades. It was how he could control the phantoms as ’runic sorcery’ seed to be an important domain of the entity that had given them power.
The third was Jahira, who had long ago learned to hide her true feelings. Though impressed by Lyra’s charm, she was more focused on Selaphiel, who had yet to blink or speak.
Finally, there was Lugh.
With a glint of mischief in his eyes, he stepped forward, intent on breaking the silence.
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