Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 1108: Why is this fun?

The quiet inside the private room seemed thicker from this distance.

Elara could hear the faint hum of the privacy seal behind Lucavion, the soft resonance travelling through the silver lines embedded in the door before dissolving into the walls. Somewhere behind her, the unfinished formation continued shedding the last traces of mana, each pale thread dimming across the plate until only the smell of warmed crystal and old paper remained. Lucavion stood between those two things, close enough now that she could see the tiny movements his earlier distance had concealed.

His fingers shifted.

The thumb pressed against the side of his index finger, loosened, then returned.

Elara’s eyes followed it.

Strangely...

She was enjoying this.

The realization appeared with enough absurdity that her steps almost faltered.

’Why is this fun?’

There was little about the situation that should have been. The lesson had derailed, Lucavion had reacted in a way neither of them understood, and the man in front of her looked one poorly chosen movement away from deciding the door was preferable to her company.

Yet watching him like this, stripped of that effortless rhythm he usually carried, stirred an odd lightness somewhere beneath her ribs.

Perhaps it was simply novelty.

Lucavion had spent most of the time she had known him behaving as though inconvenience existed primarily for his entertainment. He invaded conversations, stepped into distances nobody had offered him, asked questions with the confidence of someone already certain he would receive an answer, and smiled whenever people became irritated enough to notice.

Now she was the one approaching.

And he was wary of it.

Elara’s mouth threatened to curve.

Lucavion caught the movement.

His eyes narrowed.

”No.”

She stopped.

The word had come calmly enough, but the hand she had been watching shifted farther behind his leg.

Elara blinked.

”No?”

”No.”

”You could at least elaborate.”

”I don’t want you to look.”

For a moment, Elara simply stared at him.

The answer was so straightforward that it irritated her more effectively than one of his usual evasions.

Her brows drew together.

”Is this how this is going to work every time?”

Lucavion’s expression changed faintly. ”Every time?”

”I don’t want this, so you cannot do it.” Elara lifted one hand between them, palm turning slightly as though the simplicity of the statement itself required examination. ”I don’t want to answer, so you cannot ask. I don’t want to be examined, so you cannot look. Convenient.”

Lucavion watched her through half-lowered eyes.

”Isn’t that how it should be?”

Elara’s gaze fluttered.

The room disappeared for half a heartbeat.

Cold.

Voices layered over one another.

Fabric against skin.

A room far larger than this one and yet somehow carrying far less air.

Faces.

Too many faces.

And somewhere among them—

Lucavion.

The memory arrived in pieces, the way it always did when she reached too quickly toward that night. A shape beside her. A name spoken with disgust. Her own voice, or perhaps the memory of wanting to use it, buried beneath accusation and humiliation until the two had become impossible to separate.

Her fingers curled.

’Did you stop back then?’

Something tightened in her chest.

’If you had, would we still be here?’

The thought came naturally enough that Elara scarcely examined it.

Whatever truth remained buried beneath that night, the Lucavion she knew certainly had little reverence for boundaries when they belonged to other people.

Stormhaven alone could fill a list.

He had leaned over her shoulder while she worked simply because he wanted to see what she was doing. Stolen food from within reach of her hand. Appeared beside her without warning. Stepped into conversations that had nothing to do with him. Provoked her until she responded, then looked pleased with himself when she did.

Even here at the Academy, little had changed.

Questions.

Teasing.

Uninvited observations delivered directly into places other people would have possessed the sense to leave alone.

Elara looked at him again.

Lucavion waited.

His face had grown quieter while she remained silent, and for some reason that only strengthened the conclusion settling through her thoughts.

’You hardly stop when anyone else wants you to.’

Why, then, was she expected to?

A faint sense of righteousness followed the thought quickly enough to feel almost satisfying.

Besides, this was different.

She was his teacher tonight.

Elara’s gaze dropped once more toward his hand, studying the position of each finger with renewed purpose.

’And I am checking whether something happened to my student.’

That sounded considerably better.

More importantly, it was true.

The lesson had ended in complete disorder. His spell had collapsed, his breathing had become unstable, and an ordinary adjustment to his wrist had produced a reaction strong enough to make him retreat across the room.

Any responsible instructor would check.

Surely.

Elara felt the reasoning settle neatly into place.

’Exactly.’

She took another step.

Lucavion’s brow rose.

”Elowyn.”

”What?”

”I believe I just answered you.”

”You did.”

”And yet you are still moving.”

The smooth stone beneath Elara’s shoes gave a faint click as she shortened the distance again. She kept the motion gentle, giving him enough time to follow every shift of her body, while the hem of her skirt whispered over the floor.

”I heard your answer.”

”That makes this rather concerning.”

Elara’s lips curved.

Only slightly.

”If you are in no condition to listen,” she said, continuing toward him, ”then I suppose I only need to make you capable of it.”

Lucavion stared at her.

”Eh?”

His response came quickly enough that Elara almost laughed.

She kept walking.

Lucavion’s eyes moved from her face to the narrowing distance between them, then back again. The strained composure he had reconstructed near the door suddenly looked much less reliable.

”Eh? This... uh...” His brow creased. ”This... Is this how you play?”

”I am not playing.”

”You are.”

”I am no—”

Elara reached him before he could finish.

Her fingers closed around his hand.

Lucavion jolted.

The reaction travelled directly into her palm. His fingers trembled once beneath hers, sharply enough that she felt the movement against every point of contact, and the muscles beneath his wrist tightened as though his arm had received an instruction before the rest of him understood what it was.

”What are you doing?”

He tried to pull away.

Elara tightened her grip.

”Stay still.”

”Elowyn.”

”You wanted me to explain why I stopped you.”

”I believe this qualifies as something entirely different.”

His other hand came up, catching lightly against her forearm as though he meant to move her aside, yet the pressure never developed into anything serious. He could have removed her. Elara knew that much without needing to think about it. She had fought him before, had seen the kind of strength hidden beneath that irritatingly relaxed posture.

Instead, his palm rested there.

A warning more than resistance.

For some reason, that made the faint flutter beneath Elara’s chest return.

’Why are you looking at me like that?’

Lucavion’s expression had become a peculiar mixture of disbelief and irritation, with some of the earlier unease still trapped beneath both. He seemed genuinely uncertain what she intended to do next, and Elara found the sight far more entertaining than she reasonably should have.

Her thumb shifted against the back of his hand.

”Stop moving.”

”You are the one holding me.”

”Yes.”

”That was not an invitation to agree.”

Elara lowered her gaze before the smile threatening her mouth became too obvious.

His hand was larger than hers. Calloused along the palm and fingers in exactly the places expected from years of weapon use, rough enough that the contrast against the smooth skin of his wrist became noticeable beneath her touch. There was tension there as well, subtle but persistent, moving underneath his skin each time his fingers threatened to curl.

She adjusted her hold, bringing two fingers toward the inside of his wrist.

Lucavion glanced down.

”Elowyn.”

”I am checking something.”

”Wonderful. That explains everything.”

”It explains enough.”

She let her awareness sink toward the point of contact.

Mana answered.

At first, Elara gathered only a thread. Anything more would be unnecessary for a simple examination, and forcing power into another person’s pathways without preparation could cause discomfort even when the cultivator willingly cooperated.

Her mana collected beneath her fingertips.

Lucavion’s skin was cold.

Elara paused.

Very cold.

Her thumb moved once over the side of his hand before she realized she was doing it.

’Was it because of my mana?’

The answer came a heartbeat later.

No.

The frost within her mana had only begun gathering.

His skin had already carried that chill.

Elara’s brows drew together.

She remembered noticing it before.

The handshake.

The strange coldness that had lingered against her fingers after their supposedly first meeting at the Academy.

At the time there had been too many other things crowding her attention for the detail to become important. His name. His questions. The way he watched her. The hatred that had risen so quickly she had nearly lost control of her expression.

Now, with his hand trapped between both of hers, the coldness was impossible to dismiss.

’Your body really is strange.’

Elara let the thin thread of mana settle against his wrist.

For the first few breaths, Lucavion did nothing.

His earlier tension remained beneath her fingers, but it had changed. The sharp resistance that had followed her touch was gradually loosening, each small contraction beneath his skin becoming less pronounced than the last. Even his breathing had steadied.

Elara noticed.

’Recovering already?’

That was irritatingly quick.

She shifted her attention deeper, following the faint response beneath his skin rather than forcing her mana any farther. His circulation remained strange enough that identifying anything through ordinary comparison would have been difficult even under ideal conditions. Tonight hardly qualified.

Still—

His fingers moved.

Elara’s gaze dropped immediately.

Once.

A small curl against her palm.

Then again.

This time with purpose.

’There.’

Her attention sharpened.

”You felt something?”

Lucavion did not answer.

Elara looked up.

The unease that had occupied his expression only moments earlier had receded. Not disappeared entirely. Something quieter remained beneath his eyes, but the confusion was gone.

And somehow, that concerned her more.

”Lucavion?”

His fingers closed.

Around hers.

The sudden pressure sent a shiver cleanly up Elara’s arm.

Cold.

His palm had already been cold beneath her touch, but having that same hand close deliberately around hers made the sensation entirely different. The chill pressed between her fingers and settled against her skin with enough clarity that her shoulders tightened before she could stop them.

”Wha—”

The room shifted.

No.

She shifted.

Lucavion pulled.

Not violently.

There was almost no force to understand at all. One moment Elara stood before him with his hand caught between hers, and the next her balance moved somewhere she had not intended it to go.

Her foot slid.

Lucavion stepped through the space she left behind.

The exchange happened too quickly for thought to separate its pieces.

A turn of his wrist.

A short step.

Her body guided past his shoulder.

Then the faint whisper of fabric as their positions reversed.

Elara caught herself.

Her back was suddenly nearer the sealed door.

Lucavion stood where she had been.

Between her and the room.

’...What?’

She barely had time to register the change before he moved again.

One step.

Only one.

Yet it placed him directly before her.

Elara’s breath caught.

Those black eyes were close now.

Pitch black.

There was usually something lazy in them, some quiet amusement that softened the darkness enough to make his staring merely irritating.

None of it remained.

His eyes had narrowed.

Not dramatically.

Just enough.

Enough that the darkness inside them seemed denser, the pupils and irises disappearing into something almost indistinguishable beneath the warm library light.

Lucavion looked directly into her eyes.

And smiled.

Barely.

”Aren’t you being a bit rude?”