Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra-Chapter 805: Disarray

[Boring,] Vitaliara said flatly, her voice curling into his thoughts like a flick of her tail.

Lucavion didn’t flinch. Just shook his head once, slow and bemused, as he set the half-emptied glass onto a nearby table.

"Care to elaborate?" he asked, eyes still fixed on the empty space Valeria had left behind.

[No need. She’s just boring.]

He let that linger for a breath. Then—

’How come? I have quite a bit of fun around her.’

[Vitality doesn’t equal depth.] Her tone was laced with a feline disdain. [You have fun everywhere. With fools. With fire. With chaos.]

Lucavion chuckled under his breath. "Well, yes. But chaos doesn’t stare you down mid-ballroom and correct your nickname like it’s a duel invitation."

[And that’s the height of excitement, is it? Being scolded by a woman in polished steel?]

"I wouldn’t say scolded," he replied, rolling his shoulders in a mock stretch. "More like... precision-checked."

[She has no fangs, Lucavion. Just armor and etiquette.]

"Fangs aren’t everything," he murmured. "Some people carve deeper with restraint."

Vitaliara didn’t answer immediately, but he felt the flicker of her presence—disapproving, or perhaps just unconvinced.

[You always gravitate toward contradictions.]

He smiled again, more to himself this time. "And she’s full of them."

[Which makes her what? Fascinating? Worth your ridiculous attention?]

"No," he said simply, almost too quickly. "It makes her real."

And for a moment, that word settled heavier than the rest.

[Still boring,] Vitaliara repeated, but softer now. Less certain.

Lucavion just shrugged.

"She’s mine to be bored by," he said, not smiling now—just watching the empty space where Valeria had disappeared. "And I find that terribly interesting."

******

The conversation between Elara, Reilan, Selphine, and Aurelian had begun to ease—wine finally warming their throats, the tension of Itharion’s presence giving way to the low thrum of violins and polished conversation. The banquet had resumed, at least in the Empire’s eyes.

But Selphine’s gaze didn’t linger on her companions. It cut sideways, sharp and deliberate, toward the edge of the ballroom.

She frowned.

"That’s... strange."

Elara, still nursing a half-full glass of silverroot wine, followed her line of sight. "What is?"

"Him." Selphine’s voice was low, cautious. "Lucavion."

Aurelian, seated beside her with fingers idly drumming against the stem of his goblet, stilled. The music swelled faintly around them—violins sketching their distant, aching arcs through the ballroom air—but the warmth at their table dimmed in comparison.

"He doesn’t move like someone who just humiliated the Crown Prince," Selphine said slowly, almost reluctantly. "Or maybe that’s the point. He’s too... composed."

Elara tilted her head slightly. "You mean confident?"

"I mean terrifying," Aurelian muttered, his voice a half-step too quiet to be overheard.

Selphine’s eyes didn’t leave Lucavion. "He knew. About the Recorder. About the fallout. About what that would do to Reynard... to Lucien. And he didn’t flinch. He planned that entire collapse like he was... setting down a piece on a board."

Elara’s gaze narrowed slightly. "You think he rehearsed it?"

"No," Selphine replied, and this time her voice was firm. "I think he expected it. That’s worse."

Aurelian exhaled, the sound tired. "He’s not from any house that matters. No title. No protection. And yet he walked into that room like he was the one carrying a sigil. Like he belonged."

"Because he did," Elara said, quiet but without hesitation.

Selphine turned to look at her, sharply. "You’re not defending him, are you?"

Elara’s eyes didn’t move from Lucavion’s silhouette across the hall,

Elara’s eyes didn’t move from Lucavion’s silhouette across the hall.

He stood alone now, near one of the unlit alcoves flanking the grand window arches, hands clasped loosely behind his back. No cluster of nobility orbiting him, no sycophants scrambling to attach themselves to his name—not that he had one to give. The light from the chandeliers didn’t quite reach him there, but his posture remained unbowed, his presence somehow sharper in the half-shadow.

And he was smiling. That same impossible, infuriating smirk. Not gloating. Not mocking.

Knowing.

’He doesn’t care,’ Elara realized. ’Or he wants them to think he doesn’t. That even the Empire’s rage is just a ripple beneath his boots.’

Her fingers tightened around the stem of her glass.

Why?

Before the Recorder played, the room had been volatile. On edge. But afterward?

Everything—everyone—shifted. Like someone had turned the board upside down and Lucavion had already memorized where every piece would land.

Her thoughts had been chaos before he did this. Now?

Worse.

More jagged. More unsure.

’Why would someone do that?’ she thought, the silverroot wine suddenly bitter on her tongue. ’Why would anyone court that kind of destruction— knowing what it would cost? Knowing who it would threaten?’

Her throat felt dry, and she swallowed against it, but the bitterness remained.

’Why would someone... who held me down with such careless calm... act like some unrequested, unearned hero?’ ƒrēenovelkiss.com

The memory flashed unbidden—Lucavion’s weight pinning her, his hand at her throat, his eyes distant and impassive even then. He had barely raised his voice. Had barely looked at her like she mattered. And yet—

Her eyes slipped closed for half a breath.

A calming technique. Something Eveline had taught her. Count the breath. Anchor it in the body. Let the image pass.

But it didn’t.

His face lingered. That same smirk. That same cool calculation.

He had used her once. Played her, then left her bleeding in the wake. And now he was doing it again—just with a different audience. One that clapped in silence and watched from behind jewel-cut goblets.

’What are you really after, Lucavion?’

Was it Isolde? That thread was still unresolved. She had seen the way his gaze tightened around her name—just slightly, just enough to feel. Had glimpsed the undercurrents.

Maybe it was for the Lorian Empire.

Maybe it was to wound Lucien, to fracture his grip, to loosen the Empire’s carefully calibrated mask just enough for doubt to leak through. That Recorder, that perfect trap—it had the elegance of a state-sanctioned sabotage. A blow struck not for justice, but for influence. For message.

And if it was her—Isolde—if she was behind it...

Then it all made too much sense.

She was a master of veiled blades, of long games played in shadowed alcoves. If anyone could orchestrate the quiet ruination of the Crown Prince during the most visible night of the year, it was her. The viper. The betrayer. The one who smiled as Elara was cast out.

’Are you with her?’

The question coiled in her chest, slow and poisonous.

Because if Lucavion was—if everything was just another stage in Isolde’s spiral of control—then this moment of triumph meant nothing. Worse than nothing. It meant the Empire was simply trading one tyrant’s illusion for another.

But—

Why doesn’t it feel like that?

Why did her instincts, those same instincts forged in exile and betrayal and blood, pull in the opposite direction?