The tap was gentle. Almost hesitant.
But it came again—twice, light as rainfall—on the slope of her shoulder. Not insistent, but anchoring.
And this time, the voice was unmistakable.
“…Are you okay?”
Elara didn’t move. Not at first. Her breath was still too loud in her own ears, her heart a ragged, defiant drum against the corseted frame of her illusion. The mask Eveline crafted was holding, but barely. Cracks spread in the places she couldn’t see—along the spine of her silence, behind the hollows of her throat.
But the voice was still there.
His voice.
Low, smooth, even playful in its undertones. That same cadence he always used when slipping beneath people’s guards—half curiosity, half mockery, like the world was some game he understood better than anyone else.
Lucavion.
When did he come this close?
She didn’t know.
The fog had thickened. The garden’s hush had swallowed everything but memory. And now, his presence was at her back—impossibly near. His fingers no longer on her, but she could still feel the shape of them, outlined in phantom heat.
Elara opened her eyes.
And his were there to meet them.
Obsidian. Cut deep and polished flat. The kind of gaze that didn’t blink unless it wanted to.
He was watching her.
Not in suspicion. Not even in recognition.
But with that same calm arrogance he wore like silk—tilted smirk, tilted head, an eyebrow raised as if to say “Am I interrupting something delightful?”
And something inside her snapped.
’How dare you.’
’How dare you touch me.’
Her hand shot up before her mind caught up with the motion.
She slapped his hand from her shoulder, fingers sharp against flesh, the sound soft but precise. A motion practiced—not violent, but final
“Don’t touch me,” she said.
Her voice was low. Controlled. Not shaken—but coiled with something too intimate to be merely distaste.
Lucavion blinked. Just once.
His arm withdrew, slow, almost absentmindedly, as if studying the place where her skin had met his. His expression didn’t flare in offense. But his eyes widened slightly, not in pain or wounded pride—just surprise. Genuine, measured surprise.
“…Hmm?” he hummed softly. A murmur more than a word. Like he’d stepped onto unfamiliar terrain and heard a crack beneath his boot.
But Elara—
Elowyn, she reminded herself. Elowyn Caerlin.
—Elowyn would not do that.
A noble daughter from a minor barony. Unremarkable. Quiet. Unassuming. She would not flinch like that. She would not snap. She would not slap Lucavion Elarion’s hand away like a woman burned.
Elowyn didn’t know him.
Not like that.
Not well enough to hate him like that.
’Fool.’
The thought scalded her. Shame following rage like a second skin.
She forced her breath to slow. Lowered her hand slowly. Controlled. Regathered.
Lucavion hadn’t moved. He didn’t press. His eyes scanned her face with a curiosity far too quiet to be casual—but he didn’t reach again. Didn’t speak.
Did he suspect something?
Elara acted before the silence could curdle.
She inhaled—slow and precise—and let her posture shift. Her expression melted into something softer, more neutral, the mask slipping on like silk pulled over scars.
Then, a delicate tilt of her head. A half-breath smile.
“Ah… sorry,” she said. Voice light now, breathy with practiced restraint. “I didn’t mean to react like that.”
Lucavion didn’t speak. His gaze hadn’t moved from hers. Still searching. Still watching.
She forced a small, almost sheepish laugh. “I guess I’m more tired than I thought. The banquet… everything. I suppose the pressure’s catching up.” She lifted her hand, brushed back a nonexistent strand of hair. “It’s silly. I overreacted.”
He didn’t blink. Just tilted his head to the opposite side now, as if that would grant him a better angle. And his eyes—void-dark and endless—drilled into hers like they could see past the words, the practiced calm, the perfectly measured explanation.
Elara felt it—the shiver that tried to move through her spine. The pulse that jumped, traitorous, beneath her jaw.
’Did he buy it?’
She wasn’t sure.
And then—
Lucavion smiled.
No, smirked.
That languid, effortless thing that didn’t touch his eyes, but still made everything around it seem just a bit more unreal. Like he’d stepped off-script into his own play and decided the scene was a comedy after all.
“Ah… is that so?” he murmured, low and amused.
Elara said nothing.
He let the silence breathe before adding, casually—”It makes sense, knowing that you just saw my handsome face from this close. No wonder you were flabbergasted.”
Her mouth twitched.
Just once. A betrayal of impulse. But she swallowed it fast.
Still, inwardly—
’You narcissistic bastard.’
The insult curled up in her mind like a cat in the sun. Warm, vicious, and too familiar.
But on the surface, she said nothing. Not yet. She simply looked at him, carefully neutral again, her eyes politely wide in a way that gave away nothing. Not the truth. Not the heat in her blood. Not the past.
Elowyn Caerlin did not flinch.
Elowyn Caerlin did not rage.
Elowyn Caerlin only smiled when she meant it.
And she certainly didn’t burn for revenge.
She met his gaze now, unflinching.
“Perhaps,” she said mildly, “that’s giving your face too much credit.”
The words were soft, almost playful.
But in her mind, the knife edge remained honed.
And he—he was still smiling.
Lucavion didn’t step back.
Didn’t give her distance.
He lingered in that measured way of his—like he was always a breath closer than he should be, testing limits with silk-gloved hands and words sharper than steel. The smirk deepened, subtle and slow, like he was tasting the moment.
“Is that the case?” he drawled, voice velvet-thin and unhurried. “Because your face… said otherwise.”
She didn’t answer. Not yet.
“You looked surprised,” he continued, tilting his head just a fraction. “When you saw me. A bit breathless. A little stunned.” His eyes narrowed—not cruel, not accusing. Just keen. Curious. “Almost like someone who’d seen a ghost.”
Elara’s lips parted—but she didn’t let the lie slip just yet. She schooled her voice to something clipped and dry.
“I looked surprised,” she said, “because someone appeared beside me out of nowhere and touched me without warning.”
He raised an eyebrow at that. Not in apology. Never in apology.
“Well,” he said lightly, “you’ve been glaring daggers at that certain someone for quite a while now…”
His smirk turned, just a touch, into something laced with mock offense.
“I wouldn’t call it ’out of nowhere,’ right?”
Elara blinked once. Deliberately.
Then leaned a fraction back against the balustrade as if settling into the role he thought she played.
“You noticed that?” she asked, tone just slightly cool.
He didn’t miss a beat. “Hard not to. You look like you’re calculating trajectories and imagining exactly where to plunge the knife.”
Elara didn’t let the silence stretch.
Not this time.
“If the first thing that comes to your mind when someone looks at you,” she said, her voice steady, laced with an edge just beneath its smoothness, “is that they’re calculating where to stab…”
Her eyes lifted, locking into his with quiet intensity.
“Then you must not be a very good person.”
The words weren’t loud. They didn’t need to be. They landed between them like a dropped blade—sharp, reflective, undeniable.
Lucavion didn’t flinch. Didn’t recoil.
He held her gaze.
His eyes didn’t darken—they didn’t need to. They were dark. But something in their depth shifted, like a flicker behind glass. And his lashes—long and unashamedly delicate for someone who wielded words like knives—fluttered, once.
His mouth twitched.
Not into another smirk.
Not yet.
It faltered instead, as if his lips had briefly forgotten the choreography of amusement.
And then—
It curbed.
Not into something sly or charming, but something quieter. Smaller. Like a fold in silk after too much wear.
He looked away.
Not fast. Not dramatic. Just… slow.
His gaze drifted to the sky, to where the stars blurred into the wardlight haze, and his voice, when it came, wasn’t polished. It wasn’t poised.
It was soft. Quiet.
“You’re probably right about that.”
