Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 893: Morning of the two

Lucavion moved through the dim halls like he belonged there. Not just physically—but fundamentally. His steps didn’t echo so much as settle, each one landing with the kind of weight only someone utterly assured of their place could manage. A prince of shadows, robed not in gold but in silence and second thoughts.

The door to his dorm room recognized him before his hand touched the rune. It gave a soft mechanical chime, subtle and elegant, before sliding open on seamless hinges. No fanfare. No grand display.

He liked that.

Inside, the room was as he’d left it. Sparse, ordered, deliberately unimpressive. Most nobles dressed their rooms with imported carpets, glamour-shifted portraits, or enchanted window illusions showing the view of their family estate.

Lucavion had none of that.

His walls were bare stone, layered in passive warding rather than ego. The bed was functional. Firm mattress. Temperature-balanced runes on the frame. A single shelf lined with unmarked journals and two relic boxes—one sealed. One not.

He kicked off his boots in practiced rhythm, stripped his outer tunic, and tossed it into the woven hamper in the corner. A flick of his fingers dimmed the mana-light over the desk. Only the sconce near the bed remained, humming faintly with amber glow.

Vitaliara uncurled from his shoulder just as he sat on the edge of the bed, her feline form padding down his arm with liquid grace.

She didn’t say anything. Just leapt from his wrist to the pillow and coiled there like royalty observing a kingdom she didn’t particularly like.

Lucavion leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and exhaled—slow and quiet. His gaze unfocused, settling somewhere on the stone floor between memory and silence.

Then—

He stood.

Switched off the final light.

And lay down.

The bed didn’t creak. The room didn’t shift. Only the soft rustle of cloth and a long exhale as he folded his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling.

He didn’t expect dreams. Didn’t want them.

But sometimes, sleep came not like a wave—but like a veil. A layer drawn over the noise, the questions, the girl’s impossible gaze.

[You’re thinking again,] Vitaliara murmured from her perch.

”Not thinking,” Lucavion whispered. ”Just... sorting.”

A pause.

Then:

[Sort faster.]

He huffed a faint breath of laughter.

”Goodnight, Vitaliara.”

[You always say that like you expect me to vanish.]

”I’d be disappointed if you did.”

*****

The Academy grounds were still veiled in that strange half-light the dome cast at dawn—neither warm nor cold, just... suspended.

Caeden pulled the laces of his tunic tight, breath already visible in the air. Not because it was cold, but because something in the mana layer filtered the air differently in the mornings. He never really got used to it.

Not that it mattered.

His boots touched the courtyard with practiced quiet, the kind born from repetition rather than stealth. He took the north corridor, weaving past the arch leading toward the east wing. The stone was always faintly damp here. Rune condensation.

He didn’t think about it.

He just moved.

This was his time. The one slice of the day not cluttered by hierarchy, politics, or whatever mess Lucavion had walked into this time. Here, it was just breath. Just rhythm. Just him.

And the disciple.

Already, he could hear the soft clang of wood striking wood out near the sparring grounds—barely audible from here, but always consistent. The disciple never missed a morning. Caeden admired that. Quietly.

’Consistency earns more than talent ever will. At least, in the long run.’

As he turned past the corner of the dormitory wall, a figure stepped out ahead.

Elayne

Hair braided. Shoulders squared. Blades sheathed in a horizontal scabbard across her lower back.

She didn’t look surprised to see him.

Then again, she never looked anything.

She glanced at him once. Said nothing. Adjusted her wrist wrap.

”Morning,” Caeden offered, nodding slightly.

”Hum,” she answered. Neutral. Not unfriendly. Just... her.

He didn’t stop walking. Neither did she. Their steps matched pace without ceremony.

He cut a glance sideways.

”Training?”

She shook her head. ”Running.”

He blinked. Slightly surprised. ”...Together?”

She didn’t answer.

Just kept walking.

Silent.

Then, after several more steps—

She tilted her head.

A single beat.

Then—

”...If you can keep up.”

Sometimes, in the quiet haze of early breath and softened footfalls, Caeden forgot why he started this.

Then Elayne would appear—wordless, efficient, sharp as a blade that didn’t need to gleam—and he’d remember.

They’d run a few times before. Not scheduled. Not discussed. Just... coinciding.

And every time, she ran like the ground owed her nothing.

She didn’t race. She measured. Matched pace. Cut corners by inches. Never too far ahead—but never trailing. A silent competitor with no scoreboard.

’Not a sprinter. She’s too smart for that.’

He glanced sideways as they fell into rhythm past the northeast training ward, their steps aligning over stone polished by decades of footsteps. Her breath came quiet. Controlled. She didn’t speak.

So, of course, he did.

”You figure it out yet?”

A pause.

Elayne didn’t slow, but her brow furrowed by a hair’s width. ”Figure what?”

”Your disposition.” Caeden’s voice was casual, but not careless. ”They’re testing next week. You know. The real fun stuff.”

She didn’t answer right away.

Just the tap of her boots on rune-bound pavement. Then—

”...I’ll choose whatever I’m best at.”

Simple. Clean. Obvious.

But not empty.

Caeden huffed a dry laugh, one hand brushing sweat from his brow. ”Yeah... guess you answer like that.”

No pride. No posturing. No telling the world she was a mage or a duelist or whatever box the nobles would have liked to place her in.

Just competence.

Maybe that was why he liked being around this girl.

No complexities.

No webs.

Just the quiet certainty of someone who didn’t need a reason to move—only direction.

’What are you best at?’ Most people would ask it with ambition. She asked it like checking the weather.

He didn’t mind the silence that followed. It wasn’t awkward. Elayne didn’t fill space just to fill it. Neither did he.

So they ran.

Down the garden tier, where the hedges shimmered faintly under dew-anchored runes. Past the outer alcoves of the meditation hall—abandoned this early, save for the occasional student asleep with a tome in their lap. The world didn’t speak. It just turned.

Until something made it stop.

Not sound.

Not heat.

Not mana pressure.

Just... presence.

It hit them like stepping through a veil.

Caeden slowed, one step faltering. Elayne stopped entirely.

They didn’t need to say anything.

Because it wasn’t just something they saw.

It made them see it.

Black flames, lashing through the trees in between.

Not natural flame. Not even conjured. These moved like thought—jagged, wild, personal.

And in the center—

Lucavion.

He was always like this.

Lucavion.

The early bird cloaked in dusk.

While most students clung to sleep or routine, he carved his mornings in flame.

Not metaphorically. Not poetically.

Flame.

Black.

Personal.

He trained where no steward would bother him. No noble would risk singeing their coat. A small clearing just off the outer practice loop—technically part of the campus, but quiet enough to be forgotten.

Except by him.

And now—by them.

Caeden stood at the edge of the path, shoulder brushing a tree slick with rune-condensation. Elayne, beside him, said nothing. She didn’t move. Didn’t reach for her blades. Just watched.

Because what else was there to do?

In the clearing, Lucavion’s blade danced.

Not wildly.

Not recklessly.

Every movement was intentional. Sharp, clean, efficient.

And the fire?

It answered him.

Surged when he struck. Withdrew when he stilled.

It curled around his legs like smoke from a war-god’s forge—trailing behind each motion, spiraling into the air, refusing to obey gravity or logic.

One step forward. Slash. Pivot.

The black flame twisted with him, dragged through the air like it was part of the blade itself.

Not summoned.

Not conjured.

Claimed.

”Damn.”