Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 626: Tragedic Princess (2)

Princess Priscilla Lysandra.

In the novel, her name carried the cold elegance of ice formed under pressure—beautiful, sharp, and out of place.

Lucavion remembered the footnotes. The casual mentions. The whispers around her title. No one ever truly spoke of her in the narrative—not directly. Just enough was scattered for a reader to piece her together like a portrait sketched in candlelight.

But he had paid attention.

And what he remembered, what the novel implied but never quite spelled out, was far more brutal than the pretty imperial image suggested.

She wasnʼt meant to be there.

Priscillaʼs mother was a commoner. Not some secretly noble-born daughter hidden in a village waiting to be discovered. No. She was actually a commoner—a healerʼs daughter from a southern border province, raised among herbs and wet markets, the kind of woman who mightʼve sung folk songs to keep the wolves away.

And the Emperor?

He had met her once.

The novel was vague—intentionally. A passing whim during an imperial inspection. A single night born of royal indulgence. The kind of encounter the Empire didnʼt question. Kings did what kings pleased.

Usually, such dalliances ended in silence. The women were paid off. Moved. Forgotten. And if a child came from it, they were hidden—raised in a quiet corner of the realm with a stipend and a name that meant nothing.

But this?

This was different.

Because Priscilla wasnʼt the result of an accident, nor was her mother some nameless concubine scribbled into the margins of a scandal.

No.

The Emperor had loved her.

That single, silent truth sat buried beneath the palaceʼs golden veneer like a blade under silk—never spoken aloud in the novel, never expanded. But Lucavion remembered the way it bled through the dialogue, the implications between lines, in the way the Crown Prince spat her name, and the way his mother spoke of ”those who steal what was never theirs.”

The story never gave readers the whole picture. It didnʼt explain why the Emperor had loved a healerʼs daughter from the provinces. Whether it was a spell, or a rebellion against the constraints of imperial marriage, or something more hauntingly simple—like peace. Like choice.

But what it did reveal, in fleeting, bitter fragments, was this:

The Emperor did not cast Priscillaʼs mother aside.

He brought her.

Ordered her, publicly and irreversibly, to be summoned to the capital. Not as a passing mistress. Not as a hidden shame.

But as a consort.

It had been an act that set the court ablaze.

Lucavion remembered one scene in particular—a council meeting—where an aging duke muttered how ”a crown should not rest near wildflowers,” and another noble responded with forced laughter, ”Yet some weeds take root too deep to pull.”

Those were not the words of men discussing a brief indulgence.

Those were the words of a political structure threatened.

And the loudest opposition?

Came from the Empress.

The First Wife.

The Crown Princeʼs mother.

Lucavion could still see the image the novel painted so cleanly—her face pale with restraint, her fingers clenching the edge of her sleeve during a formal gathering, a single vein twitching at her temple as Priscillaʼs name was uttered in court.

The Empress was no fool. She had ruled beside her husband for decades. Her lineage was pure. Her position, absolute.

Until she came.

The southern girl with no noble blood, no pedigree, no name the Empire recognized.

And yet… she was loved.

The novel never described it outright, but the resentment radiated through every line the Empress spoke in private. Through her cold interactions with her own son. Through the silence that hung between the imperial siblings.

Lucavion remembered a single passing moment in the book -- quiet corridor and an overheard hushed conversation between the Crown Prince and his mother.

The Crown Prince stood like a statue—flawless in posture, unreadable in expression.

And the Empress, cloaked in crimson and shadow, stood beside him, her voice cold enough to freeze glass.

”A lowborn has no place in the palace.”

She said it without raising her voice. But the hate behind it didnʼt need volume.

”I endured the merchantʼs daughter. I even turned my eyes from that songstress from the East. But her—”

The Empressʼs tone turned acidic. ”That whore came out of nowhere. No name. No nobility. Nothing. And yet she wormed her way into his heart.”

Lucavion had remembered the pause in her voice. That slip. That barest crack in her tone that reeked not just of disgust—but of jealousy.

Because it hadnʼt been political, not really.

It had been personal.

”Donʼt forget, my son,” she said, her voice tightening like a snare. ”What is ours is not to be taken. Not by bastards. Not by commoners. Not even by blood.”

That line had stayed with Lucavion.

Not even by blood.

Because it was the turning point. The moment the heir—the Crown Prince—looked at his half-sister not as a nuisance… but as a threat.

From that day forward, everything that surrounded Priscilla was a quiet battlefield. She wouldnʼt die. No, that wouldʼve been too crude. Too suspicious. Instead—

She would be suffocated.

Every connection she formed, subtly cut.

Every retainer that swore loyalty to her, manipulated or bribed or broken.

Every public mistake magnified. Every success minimized.

And when her one opportunity arrived—the Academy—where she mightʼve stood on equal ground, where merit and politics mingled among the elite youth of the Empire…

She was thrust into it carrying the weight of humiliation.

The scandal of the Prominence.

Fabricated.

Orchestrated.

And perfectly timed.

Lucavion could already see how it wouldʼve played out if he hadnʼt intervened.

Whispers wouldʼve followed her to the academy gates. Nobles wouldʼve laughed behind silken sleeves. Even those sympathetic wouldnʼt dare associate. Professors, bound by factional loyalty, would cast her as a cautionary tale.

The unwanted girl.

The half-blood princess who failed to protect her own.

Her days at the Academy would be filled with quiet exile. Her nights with paranoia.

And all the while—the Crown Prince would smile.

Because the Academy was his stage.

And she?

She was the tragedy heʼd written long before the first class bell rang.

But Lucavion knew something else the novel had foreshadowed.

Someone was coming.

Someone who would never miss such an opportunity.

ʼHeh…..ʼ

Someone he needed to get ready to face.

She would not miss such a good pawn.

Naturally.

She was far too clever for that.

In the story, it was never spelled out in flashing ink or dramatic prose. But for anyone reading between the lines—for anyone who watched the patterns rather than the plot—it was obvious.

Someone who drew paths.

And Priscilla?

She would make the perfect piece.

A discarded royal. A girl too dangerous to keep close, too disgraced to be embraced by the mainstream factions. But still a princess. Still a name with imperial weight.

Lucavion remembered the subtle arcs in the novel. How she first appeared not as a villain, but as a poised presence in the academyʼs political councils. Calm. Measured. Polite. She was the one who offered guidance when no one else would. The one who extended a hand to those left behind.

And in time?

She always collected the broken.

Priscillaʼs isolation, her anger, her sharpness—ʼsheʼ would fan those embers. Not cruelly. Not even manipulatively at first. But inevitably.

Because to someone like ʼherʼ, every broken piece had potential.

And Priscilla?

She had been forged in a palace of silence and polished spite.

She wouldnʼt become ʼherʼ friend. No.

She would become her instrument.

The perfect villainess.

Cold. Regal. Vengeful. Smart enough to play her role, and tragic enough for the story to blame her when it all fell apart.

That was the role the novel carved out for her.

Not because she was cruel.

But because cruelty was the only armor she had left.

And if Lucavion hadnʼt stepped in—if he hadnʼt cracked the mask early—

She wouldʼve worn that armor with pride.

He could see it now. The threads still forming. The shadow of her waiting at the edge of the academyʼs political battlefield. The perfect queenmaker, polishing the dagger she would sheath in Priscillaʼs hand.

Lucavionʼs eyes narrowed, a quiet breath slipping past his lips.

ʼIsolde…We will meet soon.ʼ