"I have been wanting to et you, Mister Lucavion."
The hall around them humd with subdued curiosity — the collective strain of students pretending not to listen.
Isolde's tone was perfect: warm, polite, no hint of recognition. As though they were strangers.
As though she hadn't watched him burn.
As though she hadn't erased him from the world herself.
A test wrapped in courtesy.
Lucavion t her gaze, his smirk sharpening. "It is an honor to hear that, Miss—"
"Isolde."
She offered the na again, soft as silk, the smallest tilt of her head inviting sothing more intimate.
A gesture she had used on him once, long ago, to guide him where she wanted him.
He froze.
Just a fraction.
Just enough.
A single heartbeat of silence.
"…. "
Her lashes fluttered once — feigned softness, real calculation.
"You can call Isolde."
Another invitation. Another test. Another needle pushed subtly into the skin of his composure.
A ripple of expectancy flickered between them. Students glanced over, sensing a social script unfolding, unaware of the battlefield beneath it.
Lucavion did not smile this ti.
He did not soften.
He simply watched her, those dark eyes stripping away her illusion of warmth atom by atom. A stillness coiled behind them — not the boy she rembered, but sothing much colder.
He inhaled once, barely audible.
And then:
"…."
His silence stretched between them like drawn wire.
She held his gaze.
He held hers.
A staring contest dressed in etiquette — two blades sliding quietly against each other beneath velvet.
And then, at last, he spoke.
"I am afraid I am going to refrain from doing so, Miss Isolde."
weight of unspoken history poised like a knife between ribs.
'So. You are trying to protect yourself.'
The thought unfurled, cool and amused.
'You think keeping distance will save you from the past?
From ?
From what you once were?'
It made sense, didn't it?
The way his voice had cracked the mont she gave her na.
The tiny fracture in his smooth cadence.
The refusal to say her na again — a shield masquerading as politeness.
'Afraid, are you?'
She almost pitied him.
Almost.
Before she could examine that fragile tremor in him — before she could peel it apart, thread by thread — he lifted his hand.
A lazy flick of fingers.
Almost playful.
"Or did you think that is what I would say?" Lucavion murmured.
Her eyes sharpened.
He leaned forward, resting his chin upon his palm with practiced ease, posture folding into sothing languid, confident — the very picture of a young man to whom the world bent naturally.
A mask, then.
He wore it well.
His voice turned warm, teasing, effortlessly charming.
"Well, Miss Isolde… I wouldn't want to disappoint you. Surely you didn't think I'd stay so formal when soone like you is so easily chard by , did you?" A soft, mocking lilt. "Or are you simply the type who lets everyone speak to you informally?"
Heads turned.
A few students stifled laughter.
A few others gaped.
It was the kind of provocation that would leave most nobles flustered and scrambling for composure.
The kind that would send court ladies into indignant whispers.
The kind that made boys his age puff up like ruffled birds.
It was good, she admitted that.
Smooth. Sharp. Dangerous enough to unsettle lesser opponents.
And if she didn't know him —
If she hadn't once known him better than he knew himself —
If she hadn't held his heart in her palm like a fragile bird, back when he mistook affection for devotion —
Then yes.
It might have worked.
But Lucavion was no mystery to her.
Not completely.
Not yet.
She didn't flinch.
Because the mont he leaned forward — the mont he settled into that teasing position — he made a mistake.
He moved the hand hidden beneath the desk.
Too quickly.
Too deliberately.
As if covering sothing.
And there — for the faintest sliver of a heartbeat — she saw it.
A tremble.
A tiny tremor along the tendon of his wrist.
A tension spike he tried to bury in movent.
A reflex born of discomfort, not confidence.
'…'
Her lashes lowered, concealing the glint of cold recognition.
Even now?
Even after all these years?
He still trembled like this in front of her?
'My, Lucavion…'
A soft, invisible smile curved through her thoughts.
'You can polish gold all you like.
But cracks remain cracks.'
He didn't know she had seen it.
He thought he'd hidden it under the table, disguised with motion.
He thought leaning forward would distract her eyes.
He forgot what she was.
Isolde Valoria did not miss these things.
She never had.
And now, strangely — almost annoyingly — the familiarity struck her.
That particular kind of tremor.
That tiny hitch in his breath.
That instinct to brace his hands when his composure faltered.
It was sothing she had catalogued years ago, back when they were betrothed. He had been so easy to read then — a soft boy with soft edges, taught to bend before he learned to break.
She had not thought about those days in years.
She did not have a single reason to do so after all.
Yet here she was, rembering details her mind should have discarded — details carved into her awareness through sheer repetition.
Forced proximity.
Long engagents.
Hours spent together at ceremonies, rehearsals, dinners, lessons.
She had been exposed to him constantly.
And she rembered.
All of it.
'Even after all that ti apart… my body recalls the patterns you never outgrew.'
Her eyes lifted, eting his dark gaze again.
He wanted her to see confidence.
He wanted her to see defiance.
He wanted her to believe he was not affected by her presence.
But she had already seen the truth.
He wanted her to believe he was untouched.
That he was beyond her reach now, that her presence no longer shaped the line of his breath or the weight of his silence.
But the tremor — that tiny betrayal of nerves he thought he hid — told her everything she needed to know.
She smiled.
Not sweetly.
Not warmly.
Perfectly.
A noblewoman's smile crafted for diplomacy and bloodletting both.
"Well," she murmured lightly, tilting her head just enough for the lamplight to kiss her cheek, "I don't particularly care about formalities, Mister Lucavion."
A few nearby students glanced over again — her tone was gentle, but it carried. It always carried.
"To , everyone is equal," she said.
The implication slipped into the air like a pearl dropped into poisoned wine — pristine on the surface, lethal beneath.
She let the faintest pause breathe between them, then continued with that soft, effortless cadence:
"But if you mistook that for… easiness…"
Her lashes lifted, ensnaring his gaze.
"Then perhaps you should reconsider your view regarding won."
The shift was imdiate.
Lucavion's mouth twitched — the tiniest pull at the corner, not a smile, not annoyance, but the reflex of soone who had just been struck cleanly where he didn't expect it.
Too easy.
Far too easy.
A flicker of amusent ward her chest, subtle but sharp.
'Still predictable in all the ways that matter.'
He masked it well, of course — he always did — smoothing the twitch into a lazy curve of lips, a half-ford smirk intended to reclaim control of the narrative.
But he had twitched.
And she had seen it.
And therefore she owned it.
Isolde leaned back slightly, not retreating but settling into her advantage, her posture a portrait of calm assurance.
Her voice lowered just enough to make the mont intimate for only him, even as those around them strained to listen.
"You seed so eager to tease rely for offering you my na," she said softly. "But now you hesitate."
Her eyes glimred — not with warmth, but with precision.
A scalpel disguised as starlight.
"Mister Lucavion… are you perhaps overwheld?"
Another twitch.
Smaller.
Quicker.
Still there.
He wasn't afraid — not in the way she once saw in him — but sothing in him braced each ti she pushed just an inch deeper, as though so old reflex still lived beneath the surface he'd rebuilt.
Cornered.
He was cornered, whether he recognized it or not.
And Isolde Valoria had never been anything less than a master of corners.
She smiled again, the picture of elegance.
And she pressed the blade just a little further.
"Or," she added lightly, "is it simply that you still haven't learned how to speak to a woman properly?"
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