Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 776: A speech

Adrian rose with the elegance of a man who had never learned how not to be watched.

Each motion was measured. Each step forward carried the weight of generations. He didn’t hurry. He didn’t hesitate. His boots struck the polished floor in perfect rhythm, not loud—but unignorable.

The silver trim of his uniform gleamed under the illusion-sky, catching just enough light to make him glow like a blade still in its sheath.

And then—he stopped.

His eyes swept the crowd.

Not arrogantly.

Not hungrily.

But with the calm detachment of someone cataloguing a ledger.

Jet black hair fell in crisp, deliberate lines just above his shoulders, untouched by fray or imperfection. His expression remained perfectly neutral—too neutral. The kind that screamed caution through its very composure.

His voice, when it came, was soft.

Steady.

“The Lorian Empire… is honored.”

The words dropped like clean stones into still water.

“We thank Arcanis for the grace of hospitality, and the honor of shared education. May this union, however hard-won, serve as the foundation of something more enduring.”

There were no cheers.

No applause.

Just silence again.

Respectful.

Restrained.

Diplomatic.

Because he couldn’t afford fire here.

Not in this hall. Not with this audience.

He was a prince.

But a foreign one.

And worse still—a representative of the losing side.

The Treaty of Valerius Plains might have stopped the war, but it hadn’t erased the memory of it. Every word Adrian spoke had to be weighed against the shadow of defeat.

He knew it.

So did everyone watching.

And then—

His eyes moved.

Not sweeping now.

Targeted.

Sharp as a sword drawn just below the edge of vision.

They landed—across the room. Past nobles and banners. Through laughter just starting to bloom. Right onto one table.

Onto one man.

Lucavion.

The moment held.

No twitch of surprise. No flinch. No words.

But the message was unmistakable.

He knows.

Lucavion didn’t move either.

He simply held that gaze.

Met it.

Returned it with the smallest, faintest shift of his brow.

Acknowledgment.

Nothing more.

But in that exchange—brief as a breath—the truth curled between them like smoke.

Adrian had seen through the name. Through the scarred cloak and unmarked crest. Through time and silence and ruined legacies.

He knew who Lucavion was.

It was expected.

Inevitable, even.

Lucavion’s scar might be hidden now—half-concealed beneath his grown-out hair, masked by shadows and tailored misdirection—but structure doesn’t lie.

Not to someone like Adrian.

The prince had always been a student of detail. The kind of man who could pick a weapon from a silhouette, a threat from a blink, a truth from a silence.

So Lucavion didn’t flinch. Didn’t scowl. Didn’t hide.

Why should he?

If anything—he welcomed it.

There was a quiet satisfaction in being recognized. Not in name. Not in rank. But in being.

Lucavion Thorne.

The ghost they tried to erase.

The weapon they left in the dirt.

Now standing here, across the banquet hall in the heart of the Academy, drawing the gaze of a prince who once watched him fall.

Perfect.

Adrian’s voice returned, cutting cleanly into the heavy stillness that had followed their locked gaze.

“The students of the Lorian delegation,” he said, “have come with purpose of peace.”

He paused, letting the words settle. No bravado. No false modesty.

Only precision.

“We look forward to the trials ahead—not only in magic and swordwork, but in learning beside all of you. In sharing in the challenge, the discipline…”

Adrian’s final words hovered for a moment in the hush.

“…and the promise of Arcanis.”

Then silence.

Not empty.

Not cold.

Just waiting.

Until—

Clap.

It came not from the nobles, nor from the students, but from the dais.

Verius Itharion.

The Headmaster’s hands met once—then again—slow, deliberate, undeniable. Not thunderous. But anchoring. An acknowledgment carved in precision, not praise.

Others followed.

Sporadic at first.

Then, reluctantly, respectfully, the room joined. Applause bloomed in restrained ripples, not roaring but present. Just enough to mark the end of ceremony. Just enough to honor the line Adrian had walked with such surgical care.

The prince bowed his head once—not low, not humble. But exact.

And stepped down.

Verius Itharion’s voice rose one last time, smooth as the arc of a quill finalizing a decree.

“Let the banquet begin.”

And with those words—

He vanished.

Not walked.

Not stepped aside.

He simply was no longer there.

A breath of displacement. A curl of mana where he had stood. Nothing dramatic—just absence. Like the world had never expected to hold him long.

And then—

The room shifted.

Not physically.

Socially.

The murmurs began.

First in corners.

Then in eddies.

Noble youths leaned in close. Glances flicked toward Lucavion. Toward Adrian. Toward the five. Words like “special admit,” “treaty,” and “legacy” drifted between sips of wine and practiced smiles.

*****

Elara’s fingers curled loosely against her lap, the folds of her gown warm under her skin, but her chest cold.

Adrian’s words still echoed—not loud, not poetic, but measured. Controlled. Sovereign.

And she hated how effortlessly it had come.

’When did you learn to sound like that?’

Because the boy she had known—the one to whom she was once betrothed, whose fingers used to tremble when he had to address even a single court official—he had never liked crowds. Never liked ceremony. When they were twelve, and the heir of House Caerlin was being groomed for politics, Elara had stood taller than him in more ways than one. It was her voice that carried through early assemblies, her laughter that softened his reluctance.

He had hated the attention then.

Too many eyes. Too much pressure.

She remembered how he’d stammered when asked to speak at his first regional hearing, how the words clung to the roof of his mouth like guilt. And how afterward, sitting behind the silk screens of the conservatory garden, he’d muttered, “I sounded stupid. Like a servant boy pretending to be noble.”

And she—fool that she had been, heart still intact—had leaned forward, touched his hand, and said, “You sounded real. That’s better than noble.”

She had coaxed him into visibility.

Encouraged him.

She had believed that together, they could shape something more than tradition. That her strength could lend shape to his quiet.

And now—

He stood beneath star-woven illusions and spoke like he had never needed her at all.

’Have you always been this good, or did you become this after you threw me away?’

Her breath caught against the back of her teeth. Not from grief. Not anymore.

From memory’s betrayal.

Because this—this Adrian, poised and polished and speaking of peace like he hadn’t helped fracture it—this wasn’t the boy she remembered. This wasn’t the boy who had once asked her what kind of crown she wanted, just to see her smile.

This was a man sculpted by erasure.

By a history where Elara Valoria had never existed.

Her gaze didn’t waver, but her chest tightened with something sharp and quiet.

Not longing.

Not rage.

Something in between.

“Well,” Aurelian said at last, his voice low, shaped by the kind of breath one exhales only after realizing they’d been holding it, “that was… something.”

Selphine let her fingers trail the rim of her goblet before lifting it. “A performance without being performative.” She sipped, slowly. “I hate to admit it, but I’m impressed.”

Cedric—no, Reilan—stood just to Elara’s left, arms crossed lightly, his gaze still lingering on the space where Itharion had vanished. “He didn’t use a single spell,” he murmured.

Selphine glanced over, one brow arched. “Didn’t need to.”

Aurelian gave a dry chuckle. “Power like that doesn’t display. It defines.”

Elara didn’t speak at first.

She was still watching the glimmering ceiling, where stars—illusory yet ancient in their depiction—moved in slow arcs above them.

Her thoughts surging around.

“But?” Selphine asked, catching the note in her tone like a hawk catching wind.

Elara’s lips tilted, faint. Not a smile.

“Speaking like that…” Elara mumbled, the edge of something unreadable in her voice. “To sound like legacy without sounding rehearsed.”

Selphine’s gaze sharpened—cutting past banter, past wine-polish intrigue. Straight to the heart of it.

Selphine didn’t blink. “Lucavion.”

Aurelian stilled, his hand midway to another sip. Even Reilan shifted, the subtle kind of motion only someone who knew him would catch.

The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable.

It was taut.

Measured.

And Elara… just looked ahead again.

Her gaze swept across the crowd, but not searching. Not even deciding.

Weighing.

“Maybe,” she said softly. No emphasis. No defense.

Just a possibility.

And she left it there.

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