"You were tense. You were waiting for detection. That's why I even noticed you at all. Because you were searching

—what exactly were you really doing out here?"

Elara didn't move.

Her body was still. Her breath measured. But her mind—

'That… makes sense, doesn't it?'

She hadn't planned those words. Hadn't meant to accuse him like that, hadn't meant to unravel a thread she hadn't known she was holding.

But now that it was out—spoken, alive in the space between them—she could feel it.

Sense.

'He really was hiding something.'

She hadn't meant to believe it. But now? It sat in her chest with uncomfortable weight, like a shard of truth she hadn't realized she already knew. As if her instincts—those half-buried ones honed in Stormhaven and sharpened through exile—had already been whispering it beneath her awareness.

The pressure. The silence. The precision of those flames.

The way he'd sensed her, from that far, through the woods, while supposedly "training."

Her eyes searched his face now.

Lucavion hadn't answered.

Not in words.

But the shift in his features… it was there. Small. Subtle. Not fear. Not panic. But calculation.

His mouth was still curled in that faint, unreadable smirk, but the edges of it had flattened. His gaze, sharp and still ink-dark, no longer danced. No amusement. No mocking lilt in his posture.

He was thinking.

Hard.

'Caught off-guard,' Elara noted. 'Not with a spell. Not with a threat. With a truth he hadn't expected me to find.'

It was in his breath, too—just a little slower than before, as if counting something. As if measuring how much she knew… or worse, how much she might guess.

And that, more than anything, made her wary.

'What if…'

Her heart thudded once, slow and heavy.

She narrowed her eyes.

What if those flames weren't part of some new technique?

What if they weren't training?

What if— 'This was a signal.'

A flare. A trace. A marker.

And not for her.

Her throat tightened. Her hand—still wrapped around the now-empty cup—felt cold.

She stared at him, long and hard, as the thought coiled in her like smoke wrapping around old iron:

'What if this was a meeting?'

Her jaw locked.

'What if he was meeting her?'

Isolde.

The thought hit her like a blade slipped between ribs—quiet, sudden, too clean to scream.

Lucavion. Isolde. Adrian.

The names didn't just rise.

They spilled.

Tangled, vicious, inseparable.

Like ink bleeding through silk, they spread across the inside of her mind—staining everything.

And in the center of it—

'This wasn't training.'

A gust of wind pushed against her cloak, sudden and wrong, as if the night itself had recoiled. Or maybe that was just her.

Her breath caught in her throat.

'Isolde.'

It made too much sense.

Lucavion, always a shade behind Isolde's smile. Her hound dressed in cleverness. Her pretty little blade wrapped in jokes and charm. He'd followed her through every court, every meeting, every war table back then—never holding the leash, but never too far from its reach.

And Adrian…

Her exile had three hands.

One sealed it.

One executed it.

And one smiled while it burned.

Lucavion.

Her fingers clenched around the empty cup, knuckles white.

He was still standing there, fire gone now—but the echo of it clung to him. And that expression—

Too still.

Too composed.

She stepped forward—fast. No longer patient. No longer polite.

"Lucavion."

The name left her lips like a weapon.

He looked at her, eyes narrowing just a breath.

Elara didn't flinch.

"Who were you meeting out here?" she asked, voice low, but taut—no room for evasion. "Don't lie."

Lucavion didn't answer.

Not at first.

He just stood there, the weight of her demand settling into the silence between them like a stone dropped into water—rippling, inevitable.

Then—quietly—

"Meeting someone?"

His tone was flat. Not confused. Not amused. Just… neutral.

"Yes." Elara's eyes narrowed. "Don't play games."

He tilted his head a fraction. Barely a movement.

"I wasn't meeting anyone."

"…I said," her voice sharpened, "don't lie."

"I don't lie."

The words dropped cleanly. Not boastful. Not defensive. Just fact, spoken like stone laid down on marble.

Elara's jaw tensed. The wind flicked at her cloak again, sharp this time, tugging hair into her eyes. She didn't move to fix it.

She stared at him—hard.

Then, step by step, her voice rose—not in volume, but in temperature. The heat of frustration coiled behind her tongue like something poisonous.

"Then explain it. All of it."

Lucavion's gaze didn't shift.

"You were out here," she continued, "before dawn. Not cultivating. Not sparring. Releasing that kind of fire—without a trace of disruption, almost undetectable unless someone's paying attention. You don't just do that. Not without a reason."

Still, he said nothing.

"You were tense," she pressed. "You were searching. I know that posture, Lucavion. You weren't focused inward. You were watching. You were—"

He looked away.

His eyes turned upward, toward the sky. No stars. Just dark clouds stretching thin over the academy grounds like silk wrapped over stone.

And in a voice too low to be called careless, he said—

"…It's not only you who gets sleepless nights."

Elara blinked.

Just once.

And there it was—that moment. The soft twitch in his eyes. The blink he tried to hide. His shoulders rose—subtly, just a breath—and then sank again.

But she didn't let it go.

Because something still didn't add up.

"If that's all it was," she said, slowly, "then how did you sense me?"

That stopped him.

Lucavion's expression didn't shift. Not at first.

But something in his jaw moved—tightened—barely.

Then he scoffed.

Short. Dry.

Like the sound had come without his permission.

And when he looked back at her—

The smirk was gone.

His expression was still. Cold, almost. Eyes darker than she'd seen them all night, no trace of flame left behind to soften them.

And the words that followed?

Not amused.

Not light.

"Why should I explain that to you?"

Elara stiffened.

"What?"

"Why," Lucavion said again, his tone dropping lower, "should I need to explain myself to you?"

His voice didn't rise. It didn't snap. But it turned sharp in a different way—cutting without heat, without theatrics. Just precision.

"You think because you saw me once with my flame drawn and a strange wind in the air that you have the right to interrogate me? To demand reasons, motives—truths?"

Her mouth opened—but he wasn't done.

"We've just met, haven't we?" he said, stepping forward now, slow, deliberate. "Or rather—you met someone else before. Not me, wasn't that the case?"

She flinched.

Because he was right.

She presented herself like that after all.

She didn't know what to call him. Not Luca. Not Lucavion. Something between the two. Something neither had acknowledged.

Elara stood perfectly still.

Her spine was straight. Her shoulders square. But everything inside her cracked.

'Fine.'

If that's how he wanted to play it—coiled and closed off, like she was the one pulling strings, like she was the one who owed him silence—then so be it.

Her jaw clenched, and the words pressed hot against the back of her teeth, but she didn't let them loose.

Not now. Not while his face was still so cold. Not while that damned echo of flame still clung to his scent.

So she took a step back.

Not hurried. Not flinching.

Just distance. Measured.

Another step.

And another.

He didn't follow.

'What an ass,' she thought, sharp and bitter, her teeth tight around the fury that bloomed in her ribs. 'Acting like I'm the one crossing a line. Like I asked to walk into whatever pit he's digging with his shadowfire and evasive smiles.'

She turned away fully, cloak pulling with the breeze as her boots hit stone.

'I should've known better.'

Her thoughts spun, brittle and burning, each one a sharper retort she should've thrown at him. Should've, but didn't.

Because it wasn't worth it. Because she'd already lived through this before.

Lucavion didn't owe her anything?

Fine.

Then she'd stop expecting anything at all.

But then—

Just as her foot touched the edge of the path—

"…That cup."

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