The streets of the capital whispered with the remnants of festival noise—distant laughter, the chi of bells, and the rustle of silks brushing against cobbled stone. Lucavion walked with asured ease, but every few steps, his gaze flicked over his shoulder.
Nothing.
No rustle of armored boots. No shadow clinging too long at the edge of an alley.
No guards.
Just the regular ss of a city too used to spectacle.
He exhaled, slow and quiet, the sound barely brushing the cool night air. A small smirk tugged at his lips, though it didn't quite reach his eyes.
'It seems it worked.'
The white cat on his shoulder shifted slightly, her tail brushing the back of his neck with a touch of annoyance.
[Worked?] Vitaliara's voice ca low, sharp, and not particularly amused. [You walked into the lion's mouth and gave it a riddle instead of a reason. Why in the world would you provoke a princess like that? Are you insane?]
Lucavion tilted his head slightly, as if considering the idea.
"Well… not certifiably."
[Vitality help —] She narrowed her eyes, ears flattening back. [You toyed with her. Not just any royal. Her. You baited her with half-truths and whispered conspiracies like it was so kind of stage play.]
He humd thoughtfully. "Mm. Yes. I suppose it did get a bit theatrical."
[A bit—?]
He glanced at her, eyes glinting in the soft lamplight. "And yet, here we are. No blades at our back. No manhunt. No binding scrolls sealing my tongue."
[Yet.]
Lucavion's smirk returned in full. "Details."
The cat huffed softly, curling herself tighter along his shoulder, but her voice softened. [You risked a lot in there.]
"Calculated risk." His tone dropped slightly, contemplative now. "A trap like that doesn't unravel through brute force or noble decree. It needs to be seen first. She's not stupid. But she is—was—unaware."
[That,] Vitaliara murmured, [is sothing she can see now. But that still doesn't answer why.]
Her voice laced with the rare steel she only used when sothing pressed too close to worry.
[Why did you do it?]
Lucavion didn't answer imdiately. He kept walking, the silence between steps stretching long enough to imply avoidance. But not quite.
Not with him.
[You had no business getting involved in this ss,] she continued, her tail flicking once across his shoulder. [You said it yourself. That trap wasn't ant for you. It wasn't even ant for the baron. That was her noose. Her humiliation. And yet you threw yourself into the center of it.]
She leaned forward now, her small weight shifting against his neck like a second heartbeat. [And if things are as layered as you made them sound—if the Crown Prince really is behind all this—then he won't like it. He won't like you ddling.]
Lucavion stopped.
Right beneath an old wrought-iron streetlamp, its light pooling like spilt ink at his feet.
Then he shrugged.
"So what?"
Vitaliara's ears shot up. [So what?] she repeated, disbelief sharp in her voice. [So what? Lucavion, the Crown Prince of Arcanis is not so alley rat you can dismiss with a shrug. He will co for you. He'll track you.]
Lucavion smiled, but not with his usual mischief. This one was thinner. Sharper.
"He most likely will."
[Then you've invited unneeded trouble onto your back. Again.]
He turned slightly, eyes catching the lamp's glow just enough to give them a faint glint, like the edge of a coin flipped mid-air.
"What classifies as unneeded, my dear Vitaliara?"
She blinked, montarily caught by the softness of his tone. [What?]
"Would you have said the sa when I stepped into the Whisperer's den?" he asked, voice low, threaded with mory. "Or when I interfered with Riken and Sena's chains? When I burned a mark off a boy I didn't know?"
He paused. "Should I have walked away from you, too, that day in the Thicket?"
She was silent. Not because she didn't have an answer—because she didn't want to give it.
Lucavion's steps slowed again, boots scuffing lightly against the edge of an uneven cobble. The street curved ahead—empty, save for a few drifting petals from the leftover festival garlands strung too high for anyone to bother removing. The air was heavier here, quieter. Easier to speak without being overheard.
He stopped beneath the shadow of an old vine-covered arch, his fingers brushing the hem of his coat as he looked ahead without really seeing.
"…Or should I have walked away from Aeliana?" he said softly, almost to himself. "Should I have let her stew in that lonely little prison she calls a house, thinking no one would ever co back for her?"
His voice didn't hold any bite. Just a quiet, persistent edge. Tired. Familiar.
"These things… they can all be questioned, can't they?"
He glanced at Vitaliara now, the side of his face catching a brush of moonlight through the leaves.
"For so, the answer might be yes. I should have walked away. For others, maybe it's a shrug. A 'whatever.' They'll say I'm foolish, arrogant, ddling for no reason."
His smile returned, faint and sharp, like the mory of a wound that no longer hurt.
"But that's the point."
[You don't think it's unneeded,] Vitaliara said quietly, eyes narrowing.
"No," Lucavion replied. "I don't."
He looked up at the night sky, where the smoke of lanterns blurred the stars like smudges on parchnt.
"In front of was a spectacle about to play. A performance staged with blood and whispers. I simply… stepped in."
He looked back down. His eyes were calm. Not kind. Not cruel. Just settled.
"I dealt with it."
Vitaliara's tail twitched once, her golden gaze fixed sharply on him. Then—
[I could see that,] she said, her tone lower now. [That baron… he was acting.]
Lucavion didn't nod. He didn't need to. She'd caught it too.
[His fear was real—but not fresh. It was too refined. Like soone rehearsed it into him. The stumbles in his plea were deliberate. And his sister, she was watching you when she should have been watching the heir.]
A beat of silence.
[She knew you were the real variable.]
Lucavion's eyes glinted.
"Mm. They were both bait. Well-trained, if nothing else."
He exhaled, slower this ti, and finally started walking again, hands tucked into his coat.
"As expected of a Crown Prince with a penchant for precision," he murmured. "He always did like symtrical chaos. One thread misplaced and the whole trap unravels."
[And that thread was you.]
He smiled, and for a mont—only a flicker—it was the smirk of the man who'd once set fire to a slaver's vault just to test how fast a spellbound door could lt.
"Well, I am very good at unraveling."
Vitaliara's silence lingered behind him for several steps, until the soft clack of her claws against his shoulder fur shifted forward and her voice followed, quieter now—but edged with thought.
[You've gotten better at it.]
Lucavion didn't pause, but the corner of his mouth lifted—not in amusent. In acknowledgnt.
"Mm. I have."
[It's not just the way you read the room anymore. It's sothing deeper.] Her tail curled slightly around his collar. [You're feeling more than seeing. Threading aning from the cracks before they even splinter.]
Lucavion's eyes flicked toward a side alley where firelight glowed faint through a closed paper window. "I've had… practice."
[Not just practice,] she murmured. [Cultivation.]
She wasn't wrong.
In the months since leaving the south, he hadn't allowed a single day to waste itself in idleness. Travel had been a cover, but beneath the surface of slow caravans and muddy roads, Lucavion had worked. Nights spent hunting through mist-wreathed forests. Days ditating in cursed ruins where the world itself held its breath. Monsters had fallen—twenty, thirty, more. Each one a study. Each one fuel.
The [Fla of Equinox] had evolved through it all—no longer just a spark of balance between life and death, but a rhythm. A pulse. A breathing force that coiled in his veins with hunger and purpose.
While his core—[Devourer of Stars]—remained sealed, unmoving like a moon behind clouds, his fla had grown feral. Focused.
Yet he had acquired a new ability through his [Fla of Equinox].
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