Elara’s hand still trembled faintly.
She’d steadied her fork. Smoothed her expression. Exhaled the storm tightening in her chest. No one would see it now. Not Selphine. Not the twins. Certainly not Lucavion.
But her heart hadn’t settled.
The mont Selphine had asked the question—"Are you from the Lorian Empire?"—sothing in Elara’s spine had locked. Not at the sound of his na. But at the implication. The way a single line could peel back a person like parchnt, exposing what lay written beneath.
It wasn’t just the question.
It was the idea of it.
That soone’s origin could be nad, pointed at, revealed—in a dining hall, over bread and laughter and a few casual words. As if it were nothing.
As if it weren’t the most dangerous thing of all.
For one breath, one sliver of a second, Elara felt like she was the one being asked. Like her na might light up on soone’s tongue next. Like her own threads might begin to unravel, just as easily.
She hated that feeling.
And that was why the fork had dropped.
The clang had sounded too loud to her own ears. Embarrassing. But more than that—it had ant sothing. It betrayed that mont of fear, before she’d even had ti to think it.
But now she had.
And her thoughts were racing.
Lucavion.
Or rather—Luca.
That was how she’d first known him. In Stormhaven. In the windswept, rain-soaked shadows of Eastern Arcanis. Not in a gleaming hall with goblets and tests and rankings. But beneath the earth. Shackled. Bruised. Half-laughing, even then.
He hadn’t been Lucavion in that mont. Just Luca. Just a boy with too many secrets and not enough answers.
Back then, she’d barely survived. They had barely survived.
And yet... that smile.
She rembered it far too clearly. The flicker of moonlight through the rusted bars. The way his grin had twisted as he turned to go. The glint in his eyes—not cruel. Not triumphant. Just... inevitable. As if everything that had happened had been fated to happen, and he’d simply played his part.
She should’ve hated him for it.
She thought she had.
But now, seeing him here—laughing at the table, deflecting Selphine’s questions with the sa infuriating calm—she realized she hadn’t hated him at all.
She’d rembered.
Every year since then.
And she’d wondered.
What were you doing there, Luca?
Because he hadn’t belonged in Stormhaven.
And now, she thought, eyes narrowing as she watched him lift his goblet, voice cold and smooth as ice, now you say you were born in the Lorian Empire—but you aren’t Lorian?
That made no sense.
Not with what she knew of him. Not with what she’d seen.
What were you doing in the east, Luca?
Because Stormhaven wasn’t just "east."
It was deep east. Arcanis territory. Now under the control of House Valoria at all.....
It could be no possibility.
Under Isolde’s control.
But then suddenly her mind flickered, as the mory of the past apperead in his head.
’Not again...’
At that ti inside the cell....((N1))
The silence in the cell wasn’t empty.
It was pressurized.
It clung to her skin like the aftermath of fire—still smoldering, not yet ash.
She’d stopped crying so ti ago. The sobs had bled into breathless stutters. Her body had nothing left to give. But her heart still scread. Loud. Wordless.
’Isolde... you...’
The na tasted bitter now. Like sothing fernted too long in a sunlit lie.
She leaned her forehead against the wall. It was cold. Solid. Sothing real.
’Was any of it real?’
Then—
—CREAK!
Her body jerked.
The door. The tal one that had swallowed them in darkness.
Light slashed the room.
Her arms shielded her eyes instinctively.
—TAP. TAP. TAP.
Bootsteps echoed down the corridor.
Too many. Heavy. Not in a hurry. asured.
Her breath caught.
And then—
"Get up."
A man’s voice. Rough. Commanding.
Not for her.
Not this ti.
She heard the rustle of chains, the shuffle of movent from the next cell.
Her heart slowed. Then quickened. Then sank like a stone in her gut.
’No... no, it can’t be—’
Then she saw him.
The boy from the other cell. Dragged out into the corridor like he was no more than dead weight.
Lucavion.
The one Isolde had used. The one who had ruined her. The one who had—
Her breath hitched.
And her eyes locked onto his face.
For a mont, she thought it must be a trick of the light, a ghost from exhaustion. But no—
He was smiling.
A faint, twisted thing. Crooked. Wrong.
His eyes were half-lidded with sothing like peace. Contentnt. Satisfaction.
And he looked straight at her.
Her fingers curled around her own sleeves, knuckles white.
’He’s smiling?’
’Now? After everything? After what they did to —what he helped them do—’
He didn’t flinch.
Didn’t even blink.
That look—it was almost serene. As if all of this, everything, had gone exactly according to plan.
’He looks proud.’
"Sir Alistair ca here to take you out," said the guard beside him.
Sir Alistair?
Elara’s gaze flicked to the man beside Lucavion.
Tall. Imposing. His face carved from judgnt itself.
But not at her.
At him.
Lucavion’s brother.
And the look he gave Lucavion was ice-dipped steel.
Disgust.
Pure and unfiltered.
"Wh-what...?" Lucavion muttered.
Before he could say more, FWOOOSH!
A surge of fla burst right in front of his face. The fire licked dangerously close to his skin, and he staggered back with a choked gasp.
"Argh—!"
"Do not ever try to speak, you worm."
The voice didn’t raise. It didn’t need to.
Alistair Thorne’s words cut through the corridor like a verdict.
’He hates him... He actually hates him...’
And yet—
Lucavion didn’t look ashad.
He didn’t lower his gaze.
He just stood there, unmoved by the scolding, as if it were all beneath him.
Elara’s skin prickled with cold fury.
Her mouth opened. Then closed. Then clenched.
’How can he look like that? Like he’s done sothing noble?’
"Take him," Alistair commanded.
—TAK. TAK. TAK.
More armored boots. Knights. No insignia needed.
She recognized the symbol on their chest.
The Thorne family.
His family.
The knights seized him roughly, and Lucavion didn’t resist. Not even a twitch.
He just... let them take him. Like he knew he wouldn’t need to fight.
Like he wanted to be seen like this. Dragged, punished—yet above it all.
"I can walk by myself," he muttered.
—FWOOOSH!
Another burst of fire. This ti closer. The light burned red across his cheek.
He flinched, but only barely.
Elara’s lips parted.
She couldn’t tell if she wanted to scream or laugh or cry all over again.
Then—he turned slightly. Just a glance.
Their eyes t.
And in that mont—
She saw it again.
That smirk.
That self-satisfaction.
That unspoken "I won."
And her vision snapped.
—CREAK.
The door to the corridor opened wider.
The knights shoved him forward.
The sound of his boots echoed against stone.
He didn’t look back.
’Of course not. Why would he? He got everything he wanted.’
Her breath ca in short, shallow gasps.
The girl who had trusted too easily, who had smiled too warmly—she was gone.
In her place sat soone colder.
And Elara—
Elara stared at the empty corridor where he’d vanished.
And for the first ti in days, her heart stopped screaming.
Instead, it whispered.
’He chose her.’
’He helped her ruin .’
’He ant it.’
Hatred wasn’t a fla. Not here.
It was a dagger made of ice, pressed just beneath her ribs.
—THUD.
The door slamd shut again.
Darkness fell once more.
But her eyes—
They were wide open.
And they rembered.
The mory cut through her like broken glass hidden beneath velvet.
She hadn’t wanted to rember.
Had spent years folding it into the corners of her mind, pressing it down beneath her anger, reshaping it into sothing simpler—he betrayed . That’s all it was.
The mory unraveled like frayed silk—slow at first, then all at once.
That smirk.
She saw it again, vivid behind her eyes. The way he’d stood, half-lit by the firelight, fla still clinging to the air like judgnt. His body bound in chains, shoulders marked with soot, jaw bruised—and still, he smiled.
She had hated that smirk.
She had defined him by it.
And yet—
Now, sothing twisted. Deep, low in her chest. A friction that hadn’t existed before.
That smirk.
Had it really been satisfaction?
No, wait.
Sothing felt off. Like a key being turned in the wrong lock.
The edges of the mory trembled in her mind—not breaking, but warping. That look on his face... it had seed confident. Arrogant. Triumphant.
But now, now with the sharp clarity of distance, and years, and this Lucavion sitting across the table...
It hadn’t been confidence at all.
It had been resignation.
That wasn’t pride in his expression.
It had been acceptance.
Then—
THWAK—!
Pain lanced through her skull like a blade of white fire. Elara’s breath caught, her hand flying to her temple as if that could still it.
The headache surged suddenly—sharp, pulsing, wrong—as if sothing deep inside her mind recoiled from what she was about to realize.
A ripple passed through her vision.
And that smirk—his smirk—cleared.
It changed.
Returning to how she rembered....
-----------A/N------------
N1: her mory is from the Chapter 3-4. This should clarify for her hatred regarding Lucavion a little, and it will be important in the future.
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