But now?
Now, Jesse found herself angry.
Quietly. Deeply. Unreasonably.
Not the kind of anger that boiled over and scread. No, this was the kind that simred low—settling in her gut like sothing curdled and unwanted.
It wasn’t just what Valeria said.
It was what it ant.
Lucavion—her Lucavion, the one who had once stood beside her in the mud and blood and given her grit when she’d had none left—that Lucavion had been soone else’s too. To this girl. This pink-haired statue of nobility. This walking heirloom of a ruined House.
Jesse had always thought herself the exception. The one person who hadn’t been swept away by his riddles and masks, but who saw him. Even if she never voiced it, even if she couldn’t articulate what Lucavion ant to her—what that presence, that voice, that infuriating smirk in the dead of night ant—it had been hers.
Hadn’t it?
And now, she was realizing...
No.
No.
There had been others. Maybe not many. But they existed. And this one?
Valeria Olarion hadn’t just known him.
She’d seen beneath him.
The thought twisted in Jesse’s throat like splinters.
Her gaze lifted, searching Valeria’s face, waiting for sothing—anything—to give her permission to despise her. A smug twitch. A knowing look. A glint of pride tucked beneath her lashes. Sothing Jesse could seize with her temper and flay it clean.
But then—
She saw it.
The smile.
Not the court one. Not the carefully constructed veil of civility Valeria wore like silk armor.
This one was—
Pure.
Unpracticed.
Radiant.
A brief flicker of sunlight carved into flesh and soul. It wasn’t even directed at anyone. It wasn’t perford. It wasn’t polished.
It simply was.
A warmth that glowed, gently and without effort, across her face as she listened to soone speak—not Jesse, not even the nobles. Just... soone. Sothing. A mory, perhaps.
And for a heartbeat, Jesse forgot to breathe.
Because Valeria, in that mont, didn’t look like a noble.
She didn’t look like a rival.
She didn’t even look like a girl who held a powerful na or so secret claim on Lucavion’s past.
She looked human.
And beautiful.
Not in the elegant, distant way she usually was. Not like stone carved too smooth to touch.
But beautiful the way feelings are beautiful.
Alive.
Vulnerable.
It hit Jesse like a blunt force—how soone so composed, so icily controlled, could carry sothing so soft inside her.
And worse—how that softness had clearly been touched by Lucavion.
He made her smile like that.
Not because he tried to. Not because he wooed her.
But because sothing about him moved her. Reached whatever place inside that perfect façade still beat like a girl’s heart instead of a duchess’s duty.
Jesse looked away.
Suddenly the air felt too tight again.
The warmth of the room. The laughter. The music threading beneath glass and silver—it all dulled.
Because even if she wouldn’t admit it out loud...
So part of her hated the idea that soone else had reached Lucavion before her.
Not just known him.
But been known by him.
And yet—
That smile.
It lingered behind her eyes, mocking her.
No.
Not mocking.
Just... existing.
This—
This was worse.
Because Jesse couldn’t be angry anymore.
Not really.
Not when she looked into Valeria’s eyes and saw... nothing but truth. No sches. No performance. No quiet satisfaction in stealing sothing Jesse had thought was hers.
There was no smugness.
No veiled triumph.
Not even that polished Arcanis self-importance that wrapped so many nobles like a second skin.
Just... mory.
mory and a smile that was real.
It was unbearable.
And it was honest.
"Beautiful..." Cali’s voice drifted beside her, soft and startled—as if the word had escaped without permission.
Several heads turned. A few others—Arcanis and Lorian alike—nodded, almost reverently.
"Truly..." murmured a girl with snow-pinned hair. "Like sothing out of a painting."
"That smile just now..." another added, "I didn’t think she could..."
"She looked... warm," soone whispered. "I didn’t know she could look warm."
Jesse didn’t respond.
Couldn’t.
Because she felt it too.
That fleeting glow, that almost-sacred contradiction, was burned into her sight now. The girl who had stood like marble beside them monts ago—regal, untouchable, perfect in poise—had, for a single heartbeat, cracked open.
And what shone through...
was human.
Valeria’s expression was shifting back now—shoulders drawing subtly upright again, lashes lowering, mouth evening into that soft, courteous line. But the damage had been done. The image lingered.
And Jesse hated that it moved her.
"Lady Olarion," one of the boys asked suddenly, with the cautious politeness people reserved for royalty and spirits, "After Andelheim... did you ever see him again?"
The room stilled again—quiet, but attentive.
Valeria’s head turned slightly, the soft pink of her hair catching in the chandelier light like dawn through frost. She t the question with a pause. Not theatrical. Not heavy. Just... honest.
"No."
She shook her head gently.
"I never heard from him again. Not until today."
The words weren’t sad. They weren’t bitter.
They were... resigned.
But there—
in those simple words, Jesse heard sothing.
Not sadness.
Not regret.
But a quiet truth that echoed too close to her own.
I never heard from him again.
Valeria had ant it plainly. But Jesse... she heard more.
She heard the sa silence Lucavion left behind in her.
The sa gaps between what he said and what he never would.
The sa vanishing act that wasn’t cruel—but was him.
If he’s like this to everyone...
That thought stung at first. Like she’d been tricked into believing she was different.
But now, standing here, watching a girl like Valeria—so composed, so sharp, so hauntingly real—say it without bitterness...
She could feel the tension in her chest begin to loosen.
Not disappear.
But loosen.
Maybe...
maybe she could forgive him.
Just a little.
Forgive him for the way he left.
For the way he appeared again without explanation.
For being who he was—so completely, so unapologetically—that people like them kept trying to fill in the blanks he left behind.
Soone in the group chuckled, drawing Jesse’s attention back.
"Do you rember when he dropped Rowen mid-swing with a backhand movent of sword? Didn’t even break stance."
"Oh, he toyed with Rowen," soone else said.
Cali snorted. "That’s generous. Rowen’s avoiding mirrors."
Laughter followed. Light. Easy.
Jesse found herself smiling. Not wide. But real.
This was... fine. This conversation. This strange shared mythology around Lucavion.
They were building it together, piece by piece.
And maybe that was okay.
But then—
"Hello."
The voice ca like silk pulled through wine.
Soft.
Smooth.
Unhurried.
And every person in the circle—Lorian, Arcanis, noble or soldier—turned at once.
"Would you mind," the voice continued, each word dipped in subtle grace,
"if I were to join?"
Lavender eyes.
Silky platinum hair.
Isolde.
Her presence did not demand attention—it gathered it. Like a storm cloud that hadn’t rumbled yet, but could.
She moved slowly into the circle, not like soone requesting permission, but like soone offering the illusion of it.
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