Elara lingered a moment longer at the balustrade, her eyes tracing the last threads of sunlight stretching over the gardens. The warmth had almost vanished, leaving behind the quiet chill that always settled before evening study hours. She should have gone back already, but her mind refused to still.

Lucavion and the princess—two names that shouldn't belong in the same thought, yet now they did.

She turned away, her steps slow, the click of her boots muted by the marble floor. Her reflection trailed her in the tall windows that lined the hall—pale face, thoughtful eyes, a composure too carefully maintained.

What is it with Princess Lucavion? The question clung to her tongue like iron.

The corridor outside the terrace was empty, bathed in that half-light between day and night. Each step echoed faintly as she made her way back toward the dormitories, but her mind remained in that other hallway—the one where pride and cruelty had bled together.

A strange ache stirred beneath her ribs, something halfway between pity and recognition.

She'd seen the look in Priscilla's eyes before. Not the defiance—no, the quiet underneath it. The kind of silence that came from learning early that the world would never see you as you were, only as what they decided you should be.

Elara's fingers brushed against her sleeve, where the faint trace of mana still lingered from when she'd almost acted.

Isolation disguised as dignity. The thought came again, and she realized how easily it applied to both of them.

The princess bore royal blood that no one respected.

Elara bore a name she could never claim again.

Different circumstances. Same loneliness.

Her throat tightened as she walked, and she found herself glancing toward the direction of the northern wing, even though she'd already left it behind.

Lucavion's voice replayed in her memory—steady, detached, as though he'd orchestrated the whole thing before he even appeared.

It was too perfect, wasn't it?

The timing. The silence. The moment of intervention that came exactly when the spell was about to strike hardest.

He had watched it unfold.

He must have.

And then he had chosen his moment.

Just as he'd done with her in Stormhaven. Appearing from nowhere, interfering at the last possible second, playing the savior's role without ever saying the word.

The thought left a sour taste in her mouth.

'Was it pity then too? Or calculation?'

She wanted to believe that he'd done it because he couldn't stand to see injustice.

Anyone would have….

But to her who had….recalled those moments of her coming of age ceremony…

It was not possible.

With Isolde's existence, and Lucavion's possible connection to her.

His kindness, when it showed, was starting to feel that it hid something beneath.

And yet, her doubt made her feel no better than him.

Because she had done the same—watched and waited.

If she accused him of standing back to measure his timing, then what was she? Someone who had stood behind a column and done nothing while another was beaten bloody.

A coward.

The word slid through her mind like a knife she didn't want to hold.

She pressed her hand against the cool stone wall as she walked, as though she could steady herself against the truth of it. The corridor around her was quiet, her own footsteps the only sound.

Maybe Lucavion wasn't wrong to act the way he did. Maybe his timing—the precision she'd found so unsettling—was the only kind of mercy this place understood.

Elara stopped in the middle of the corridor.

The question rose and stayed there, heavy, immovable—Am I any better than him?

Her reflection in the tall window beside her wavered in the twilight, a ghost caught between colors. The faint light of the rune-lamps carved the planes of her face into something sharper than she liked.

She had stood there and watched. Just like him. Waiting for the right moment that never came.

He'd done it with purpose. She, with fear. And somehow that difference felt smaller than it should have.

To get her revenge. To protect the illusion she had built. To keep her name hidden and her enemies blind—she had chosen silence over decency.

Her fingers curled loosely at her side.

'So that's what I've become,' she thought, the words echoing like stones dropped into a well. 'A coward hiding behind good reasons.'

Normally she would have done something. She knew she would have. In the past, she'd been reckless enough to step in for people who didn't deserve it. It had been almost instinctive—Eveline used to call it her one fatal weakness.

And yet today, that instinct had frozen in her chest like ice.

She leaned her shoulder against the wall, eyes unfocused.

What had she really been afraid of? Exposure? Losing control of her disguise? Or was it something smaller, meaner—the relief of having someone else intervene before she had to?

The thought settled cold in her stomach.

Because maybe, somewhere in the corner of her mind, she'd known he was there.

Lucavion.

He'd led her to that corridor, hadn't he? She had followed him—step for step—believing he was heading toward something secret, maybe dangerous.

And then the bullying, the spell, his arrival right on cue.

It all fit together too neatly.

'Did I… subconsciously trust him to handle it?'

The thought made her breath hitch. No. That wasn't it. It couldn't be. She'd never trusted anyone like that—not after everything that had happened. Not after what trust had cost her before.

Elara pushed away from the wall, shaking her head as if she could dislodge the idea physically. "No," she whispered aloud. The word cut through the still corridor, too sharp, too desperate.

She didn't owe Lucavion that kind of faith. She didn't want to owe him that kind of faith.

Yet the unease wouldn't fade. The image of him standing there—dark coat, easy posture, voice steady enough to command the air—played over and over in her mind. He hadn't been surprised to find those girls. He hadn't even looked startled.

Almost as if he'd been waiting for it.

And her, standing in the shadows, waiting too.

Her throat felt dry.

If she'd known he would interfere, if she'd counted on him to, then her silence wasn't hesitation—it was dependence.

"That is not the case."

Elara straightened, pushing off the wall, and continued down the hall with quicker steps, as though distance could separate her from the thought.

Yet even as she walked, the question lingered like a whisper in the back of her mind:

If you trusted him, even for a moment… what does that make you now?

Elara's steps slowed again, the rhythm of her boots softening against the marble floor. Her mind refused to let go.

Lucavion.

He had been too precise.

Her breath clouded faintly in the dim light, the air inside the corridor cooler now, still humming faintly with mana from the distant wards. She traced her hand along the smooth wall as she walked, fingers brushing over the runic grooves like she was trying to find the outline of a truth that didn't want to be seen.

His timing, his calm, the way he'd dismantled those girls without breaking a sweat—it wasn't instinct. It was awareness.

And then it struck her—if he had known to appear at that exact moment… then surely he must have known she was there too.

Her pulse stumbled.

Lucavion's senses weren't normal. She knew that better than anyone.

Back during their sparring session at dawn—she could still remember it with frustrating clarity. The quiet mist, the smell of dew and steel, the faint hum of mana across the training place between the trees that he claimed for himself.

He had read every feint, every shift in her stance, as though her thoughts were something physical he could hear.

And that was during combat—when adrenaline clouded everything.

Here, in that silent corridor, she had been watching him for long minutes. Close enough that the hum of his mana should have brushed against her own. Close enough that even a novice would have felt the pull.

There was no chance he hadn't noticed.

The thought rooted her to the floor.

'Then why didn't he say anything?'

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