"And Lucavion stepped in," Cedric said.
"It was the case, wasn’t it?"
Cedric’s stare darkened in an instant—hard, cold, protective in a way that no longer felt comforting but sharp enough to flinch against.
"Intervened," he repeated. "You an he inserted himself into soone else’s problem to look like a savior."
Elara’s breath hitched. "Cedric—"
"No," he cut in, tone clipped, almost scathing. "Don’t tell he’s suddenly a hero. That’s not him. It never was."
She swallowed, her fingers curling almost imperceptibly at her sleeves. She hadn’t called Lucavion anything close to a hero. She had rely stated what she saw. But Cedric was already spiraling down the path shaped by his own mories.
"He doesn’t act for others unless he gains sothing," Cedric continued, heat creeping back into his voice. "Maybe he was saving face. Maybe he wanted leverage. Or maybe he just enjoys ddling where he shouldn’t. But don’t—Elara, don’t entertain the idea that he did it out of kindness."
Elara stayed silent. Not because she agreed. Not because she disagreed. But because correcting Cedric now would an stepping into dangerous ground—trying to defend a man whose shadow still made her insides twist.
She didn’t want to defend Lucavion.
She didn’t even understand what she had seen, much less what she felt about it.
But hearing Cedric carve him down so brutally—hearing the bitterness, the fear, the disgust—it settled uncomfortably beneath her ribs. A pressure she didn’t know what to do with.
Cedric noticed the silence and misread it as agreent, his tone hardening further.
"He’s manipulating sothing," he said. "He always is. The fact that you walked into his ss is the problem. He pulls people into his chaos like a stormcloud."
"Cedric..." Her voice was soft, more plea than rebuke.
He didn’t catch it. Or maybe he didn’t want to.
"And you should have walked away," Cedric pressed, voice rising in intensity though never in volu. "You should have left the mont you saw him. You’re too close to danger. Too close to him."
A tiny knot tightened behind her sternum—not anger this ti, but discomfort. Cedric’s intensity was familiar, but it pressed differently now, like pressure on a bruise.
"I didn’t choose to be there," Elara said quietly. "I was already hidden when he arrived."
"And you didn’t leave?"
"I couldn’t," she admitted. "The girls were ard with artifacts. They were going to hurt her."
Cedric’s scoff was imdiate, sharp. "So? That’s not your responsibility. Priscilla is not your responsibility. And you know that."
Elara looked away, her jaw tightening. She hadn’t thought about responsibility at all. She had seen cruelty escalating and acted on instinct. Eveline had taught her to weigh the consequences before stepping into any conflict—but Elara had never learned to look away.
Cedric mistook her silence for frustration.
"You weren’t supposed to be there," he said again. "You shouldn’t be anywhere near him. Not after what he did. Not after what he is."
Elara’s fingers loosened around her sleeves, her breath coming slower now—steady, but distant. Cedric’s hostility toward Lucavion was familiar, but tonight it felt... suffocating. Like she was wedged between two wrongs with no ground left to stand on.
Cedric’s expression tightened again, the anger in him cooling into sothing more calculated. When he finally spoke, the words ca slower—asured, but edged.
"And if he was there," Cedric murmured, "then I doubt he was acting alone."
Elara blinked. "...What do you an?"
Cedric’s jaw flexed, the muscle beneath his cheek tightening. "Isolde. Her little circle. Her hands reach farther than students think. She’s tied to enough noble families that she could orchestrate sothing like this without lifting a finger."
He stepped back half a pace, running a hand through his hair in a frustrated gesture that was startlingly rare for him. "And if Lucavion was involved, it makes even more sense. He’s either colliding with her sches... or helping them."
Lucavion’s recklessness.
Isolde’s ambition.
The nobles who hated Priscilla Lysandra.
The politics snarling beneath the surface.
The sa logic that she had also thought of.
Cedric saw the flicker in her eyes and pressed the point, voice dropping lower.
"Elara... don’t you rember what they did to you? What she did to you?" His gaze turned sharp, unforgiving. "Do you really think they wouldn’t target soone else for their own convenience?"
Those words hit her like a physical strike—not because they were wrong, but because they were true enough to sting.
She had wondered the sa thing.
She had thought of Isolde’s faction.
She had felt the cruel familiarity of those girls circling Priscilla—
how easily she could have been the one in that ring years ago.
Cedric continued, his voice taut.
"That woman is a snake.... A snake that doesn’t have any slightest of conscience."
His voice sharpened, simring with a cold fury.
"And Lucavion thrives on opportunity. On chaos. On inserting himself into places he has no right to be. It’s only natural they’d use him—he doesn’t need much pushing to get involved. And he doesn’t care who gets hurt."
Elara stayed silent, her mind turning despite herself.
Cedric’s logic wasn’t wrong.
Isolde was capable of orchestrating cruelty.
No...She was just more than capable of that...
Isolde had orchestrated everything.
She had orchestrated all of it—her banishnt, her ruin, her disgrace, every shred of humiliation, every twisted lie that tore her life apart.
But Cedric spoke with such absolute hatred, such unyielding certainty, that it pressed like a heavy hand against Elara’s lungs.
Elara said nothing.
She didn’t need to.
Cedric’s hatred of Isolde was justified. Her own scars proved it. The mories were carved too deeply into her bones to ever fade.
And Lucavion—
Lucavion had also been...
Even if she didn’t know the whole story—even if sothing about that night had always felt a little off, a little too orchestrated—she could not deny the truth of her own suffering.
Isolde had engineered every part of it.
And Lucavion had been the knife she drove into Elara’s back.
Elara herself thought that.
She still did.
So Cedric’s words, harsh as they were, weren’t wrong.
But hearing them spoken aloud—hearing him condemn Lucavion so absolutely, hearing him paint everything in clean, decisive lines—made her chest feel tight. Too tight.
Cedric didn’t notice that.
He only saw the hurt in her silence.
And interpreted it as agreent.
"Elara," he said quietly, "you know what they are. You know what they did to you. Don’t doubt that now."
She inhaled. Slow. Controlled.
She wouldn’t doubt it.
She couldn’t.
But she also couldn’t listen to more.
She didn’t want to think about Isolde’s voice whispering lies. She didn’t want to rember Lucavion’s body thrown across her sheets. She didn’t want to see her father’s face, twisted with rage and disappointnt.
Not tonight.
Cedric watched her shoulders stiffen, saw the exhaustion settling into her posture like a weight she could no longer fight against.
He eased his tone, stepping closer—not in anger this ti, but sothing softer, more instinctive.
"Elara," he murmured, "if things like this happen again... you shouldn’t handle it alone."
She blinked at him, her face unreadable.
"We should face them together," he continued. "Whatever it is—Lucavion, Isolde, nobles, politics—I don’t want you dealing with any of it by yourself."
He hesitated, then added, quieter:
"I need you to rely on . Even just a little."
He wasn’t wrong.
And this conversation was not the first with that either.
But maybe it was her own nature? That was hard to explain for so reason.
She was tired. But she didn’t trust her voice right now. So she simply nodded once—a small, weary motion that conveyed agreent and surrender all at once.
Cedric exhaled, tension easing from his shoulders as though the nod ant more to him than any words could.
"Good," he said softly. "We’ll figure everything out. Together."
Elara gave a faint sound of acknowledgnt. "I... should get so rest."
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