"Retaliating would have given them the chance to abuse it, wouldn’t it?"
Hearing that Selenne’s mouth could only twitch.
Not in amusent.
Not in approval.
Just a flicker—a small, involuntary shift that betrayed sothing taut beneath the surface. The kind of reaction that cos not from surprise, but from recognition. From an old irritation finding a familiar shape.
Lucavion was too composed.
Too asured.
Too unsurprised.
Selenne narrowed her eyes, gaze sharpened like a blade pulled partway from its sheath. He wasn’t shaken. He wasn’t lashing out. He had co out of a trial visibly injured—injured by allies—and still spoke as if it were a matter of paperwork.
"You were targeted," she said quietly. "Not just ignored. Targeted."
Lucavion t her gaze without flinching. "You sure you want to call it that? The records don’t."
Her voice cooled further. "Don’t play clever."
Lucavion exhaled—slow, steady, unbothered. "Alright."
He leaned slightly against the stone column behind him, one leg crossing over the other, casual in the way only soone who had just walked through fire and erged smirking could be.
"They flanked left when I was supposed to cover the east," he said. "Then soone dropped a wide-blast spell into my line of movent. Twice. After that, a chain snare clipped my shoulder when I was stepping in to block the frontline."
Selenne’s expression didn’t change, but inside, her pulse ticked once.
He kept speaking.
"No direct strikes. Nothing overt. But none of it was clean. Or tid well. I got ’cut off’ just a few too many tis. Easy to fra as stress. Miscommunication." He tilted his head. "Mistakes."
He said the word like it tasted like smoke and ash in his mouth.
"Mistakes," she repeated, voice low.
Lucavion gave a shrug. "You know how it is."
"Do I?" Her voice dipped. Not mocking. Just pointed. "You’re saying your entire team suddenly forgot how to aim?"
A flicker of sothing unreadable passed through his eyes. But he didn’t answer imdiately.
Instead, he glanced toward the glyph screens—now cycling through the next batch’s scores—and said:
"If I failed, they would’ve had leverage to push down the rankings. Maybe even off the track."
Selenne’s eyes darkened slightly.
Politics.
Always.
He continued, lightly, "But I didn’t fail. So now it just looks like I was clumsy."
Selenne stood there for a beat longer, the din of shifting students and murmured scores blurring into a low hum beneath her focus. Lucavion wasn’t speaking anymore. He didn’t need to. The blood dried at his ribs and the silence between them said enough.
He wasn’t seeking help. He wasn’t even seeking acknowledgnt.
He’d endured the targeting, calculated the outco, and endured again—quietly, without complaint. Like it was expected.
She didn’t ask him anything else. Not right away. Her gaze tracked across the room—to the clean uniforms of the other students, the way Lucavion’s so-called teammates now clustered together, already laughing with others. Their body language scread it: We passed. We’re fine. He’s the one who took damage.
’You did not think this through.’
The thought settled like frost beneath her ribs. She had anticipated the politics. Of course she had. Considering what Lucavion have done, she’d expected resistance, murmurs, maybe even quiet attempts to reshuffle his position through backdoor pressure. She had not, however, expected this.
Sabotage. In a trial. With live trics. With instructors watching.
’They didn’t even try to hide it.’
Her eyes lowered again to Lucavion—still leaning against the stone like it was the only thing that hadn’t tried to gut him that morning. Unbothered. Not because it didn’t matter.
Because he expected it.
’He’s already learned how this place works. Maybe he was already aware?’
She should have stepped in sooner. Not with power, not with shields or posturing. But with the understanding she should have rembered—had once lived through.
’You were supposed to be watching for this. You, of all people.’
This was rather to herself.
No family crest to vouch for her, as she has climbed the ranks of the world. No patron to pull strings. She rembered what it ant to be the outlier, after all that was her work life....
Even now.
She was Archmage. Untouchable, in theory. Yet so high above that the weight of whose protection she offered had beco ambiguous. Diluted.
’You should have made it clearer who he stood under. Who had claid him.’
She’d let it hang—left his presence under her wing vague enough to avoid backlash, discreet enough not to draw accusations of favoritism. But all that caution had bought was ambiguity. Which, in the eyes of the Academy’s old bloodlines, was the sa as abandonnt.
’My oversight.’
She exhaled, soft and silent.
Then, finally, her eyes lifted. They locked onto Lucavion once more.
The boy was watching her again—not reading her thoughts, but not unaware either. His gaze was level. Not questioning. Not hoping. Just present.
He didn’t expect protection.
But that didn’t an he didn’t deserve it.
Selenne’s gaze lingered, fixed on the boy who’d sohow managed to be both a complication and a reflection. There was sothing unbearably familiar about the way he handled the wounds, the silence, the social bladework masquerading as protocol.
Annoying. That was the word for him.
Too sharp, too composed, too ready to throw a smirk in place of an explanation. He was difficult. And yet...
’Annoying isn’t the sa as unworthy.’
She folded her arms, the fabric of her sleeves whispering against each other. He didn’t shift under her scrutiny.
’You’re still young, still reckless, still arrogant. But that doesn’t excuse them.’
’And it doesn’t excuse .’
She rembered what it was like. The way the weight of expectation could shift, without warning, into the shape of sabotage. The way those above you remained silent long enough that the damage could settle in your bones.
And how that changed—when one person stood between you and the rest of the wolves.
’Just like... he did for .’
Her jaw tightened slightly, the thought cutting sharper than expected.
She took a step closer—not for effect, just to close the distance that still felt too wide.
"Did you have another exam before this one?"
Lucavion’s head tilted slightly. Not surprised. Not hesitant. "Yeah."
Her eyes narrowed. "What kind?"
"Weaponship evaluation."
Sothing flickered in her. A dull throb of unease. She hadn’t looked at that log yet.
Her voice was careful now. "Did..."
She didn’t finish the question all at once.
"...Did sothing similar happen then, too?"
Lucavion didn’t answer right away. His hand idly toyed with the frayed edge of his sleeve, not hiding the soot that clung there. When he finally spoke, his tone was casual.
"Nah. That one went fine."
He let the pause hang—just long enough.
"I beat the instructor."
Selenne blinked. Not visibly. Not obviously. But enough.
Then—without intending to—she scoffed. Quiet, dry, more breath than laugh.
"Heh... don’t lie to , kid."
Lucavion turned his head slightly, enough for her to catch the faint edge of sothing between irritation and amusent playing at the corner of his mouth.
"Magister," he said, tone even, "don’t you rember what I said?"
She stilled.
He didn’t grin.
He didn’t raise his voice.
He just looked at her with those black, depthless eyes that always held sothing coiled behind them, and said:
"...I don’t lie."
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