Lucavion’s gaze drifted between the two of them—Thalor, poised like a statue carved by an artist who had only ever seen snakes, and Rowen, a blade sheathed in diplomacy but no less sharp for it.
Thalor was smiling.
Of course he was.
That particular brand of smile—the one that glowed with gracious elegance while reeking of orchestration—was painted across his face like lacquer. Calm. Pleasant. Triumphant.
As if this had all gone exactly as he wanted.
Lucavion didn’t need confirmation.
He could feel it.
From the mont Thalor approached Priscilla, Lucavion had sensed the quiet gears turning behind that genteel expression. The man wasn’t the type to make a scene without a script. Every word, every pause, every breath asured. Even the way he stepped into her space—it had purpose. Not just to remind her of a past. But to push sothing into motion.
’Did I expect this?’ Lucavion thought, jaw tightening. ’No. Not exactly. I didn’t think he’d stretch this far in public.’
But now that it was unfolding?
It made perfect sense.
This wasn’t about the duel. Not directly.
This was about control. About making a stage, then casting Lucavion onto it as the unpredictable variable—a threat cloaked in mystery, forced to reveal himself under noble scrutiny. Thalor had likely prepared multiple outcos. Victory. Scandal. Maybe both. And with Rowen stepping in as the "volunteer," the story now had weight. Prestige. A seal of legitimacy.
Thalor hadn’t just baited Lucavion into a fight.
He’d built a stage that required Lucavion to respond.
Lucavion didn’t move. Didn’t blink.
He simply t Rowen’s gaze—quiet, sharp, knowing.
He had expected this.
No, more than that.
He had earned this.
From the mont he cracked Lucien’s composure, from the instant the prince’s perfectly curated façade faltered under the weight of a whisper and a smirk—Rowen had been ready to strike.
Lucavion saw it then. In the twitch of knuckles. The tightening jaw. The slight pivot of weight, barely visible beneath the cloak of decorum. Not rage. Not indignation.
Resolve.
The kind that cos only when a blade has already been half-drawn in the heart.
He hadn’t done it. Not then. Because Priscilla stepped in, because the rules of the hall still held, if only by a thread.
But that didn’t erase the will.
It never does.
Lucavion knew that truth intimately.
Because he, too, carried a sword.
And there’s sothing that happens—sothing primal—when a warrior feels the fight stir.
It doesn’t just vanish when the mont is passed.
It lingers.
Hums.
’That’s the problem with restraint,’ Lucavion mused, eyes narrowing faintly. ’It sharpens the edge.’
Rowen was composed. Impeccable. The Empire’s sword wrapped in civility. But Lucavion saw it now—the fire behind the frost.
He wanted this.
Not for sport. Not for spectacle.
For clarity.
’He sees as a threat now,’ Lucavion thought. ’Not because of what I said. But because Lucien bled for it.’
And that made Lucavion dangerous in a way Rowen couldn’t ignore.
The weight of his stare wasn’t curiosity. It was purpose.
This wasn’t a duel of pride.
It was a decision.
Rowen had chosen to confront what the court was now whispering, what Thalor had crafted with velvet and lace: that Lucavion was not just different.
He was uncontrolled.
’So you’ll face on the floor,’ Lucavion thought, the faintest flicker of a grin pulling at his lips,
’Of course,’ Lucavion mused, watching the tension behind Rowen’s eyes congeal into quiet certainty. ’This isn’t about honor. Not really.’
It was about restoration.
About rewriting what had just happened.
’If I bleed here—even a little—that recording, those looks, the whispers about Lucien’s mask cracking... they’ll all be footnotes. That’s the strategy.’
He could see it clearly now.
’They want a cleaner headline.’
Lucavion, the anomaly, put in his place by Rowen Drayke—Arcanis’ loyal sword. The son of the Knight Commander. A na with steel in its bones and duty in its breath.
It would be perfect.
If he let it happen.
’Heh...’
A soft, almost amused exhale slipped from Lucavion as his gaze dropped—not in submission, but in observation.
Rowen Drayke.
The dutiful son of a legend.
In the novel, Rowen was barely a shadow. A supporting wall in the background of nobility’s grand design. He wasn’t the male lead. He wasn’t even a rival.
He was a barrier.
Soone who opposed Elara not out of malice, but out of conviction. Her common birth was a blight to him—a breach of sacred order. In another world, in another genre, he might have been sympathetic. Even admirable.
But here?
He was just another fixed point.
’Your role wasn’t ant to last,’ Lucavion thought, lips curling faintly. ’Not in the story I read. You existed to disapprove. To object. Then to vanish.’
In a way, Rowen was soone who added the spice to the book, then his role was over.
And vanish he had.
Minimal screen ti. Fewer shared classes. A swordsman trained in discipline, in battlefield command, relegated to corners of the plot.
But now?
Now, he was stepping forward. Into light. Into relevance.
’Because Lucien stumbled,’ Lucavion realized. ’And soone had to lift the banner.’
And that soone would be Rowen.
Lucavion’s thoughts were still coiled tight in his chest, sharpened by the weight of understanding. It wasn’t just the court that worked in sches and shadows—no, even those who draped themselves in steel and oaths had their own choreography. Especially knights. Especially heirs to legacies.
’Knight Commander or whatever shit—’ he mused darkly, ’they’re all carved from the sa rotten honorwood. Just better polished.’
There was nothing knightly about bastards like this. Just rituals. Just ceremony. Just the illusion of virtue to gild the blades they raised for politics, not people.
And then—*
A sound broke the tension.
Clap.
It wasn’t loud.
But it was surgical.
Like glass tapping glass in a silent library.
Thalor Draycott, of course.
Lucavion’s gaze flicked to him at once.
The bastard was clapping. Just twice. Slow, precise, performative.
And smiling.
Always smiling.
"Oh, how splendid," Thalor said, his voice velvet and daggers. "There is indeed no one who could represent our side better than the son of the Knight Commander himself. The embodint of virtue, discipline, and Empire-bound decorum."
He turned, the movent fluid—more dancer than duelist—and let his eyes sweep across the hall. Not for dramatics. For effect. Always effect.
"Truly," he continued, now facing the Lorian delegation, "how nice."
The words were polished.
But the edge beneath them?
Pure teeth.
And then, Thalor’s gaze landed precisely where he wanted it.
On Prince Adrian.
His tone, sohow both warm and chilling, rang through the hall like a question dipped in silk.
"Then, Prince Adrian..." Thalor said, tilting his head just slightly, a polite predator in noble trappings. "What do you think of our little competition?"
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