Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 808: Another male lead (2)

Now, standing across from him again beneath the glittering chandeliers and painted smiles, she didn’t feel that old ache. Not really. It wasn’t pain anymore—it had dulled into something colder, quieter. Something like recognition.

Complicated.

That was the word for it.

She didn’t hate him. Not the way she had that night, curled beneath her covers, teeth clenched, tears held back like they were shameful. She didn’t even feel the sting of that moment like a wound. Not anymore. NovelFire

But she did remember.

And the memory didn’t warm her.

Thalor Draycott wasn’t a heartbreak.

He was a reminder.

Of who she’d been. Of what she’d believed. Of just how naïve a girl could be before the world carved its truths into her with silk gloves and silver knives.

Looking at him now, she felt nothing soft. No flutter, no yearning, no ghost of that childhood fondness. The part of her that once leaned toward him had long since been cauterized. What remained was sharp-edged clarity.

Yet even that wasn’t simple.

Because Thalor wasn’t just a boy from her past.

He was a mirror, held up at the worst possible angle.

He embodied everything the court adored—talent, birthright, power stitched into every inch of his perfectly tailored presence. And he had walked back into her life at a moment when she had just begun to reject all of it.

’You’re not a regret. You’re a test.’

She exhaled through her nose, eyes steady, voice composed.

“What do you want, Thalor?” she asked, not coldly—but cleanly. As one might ask a passing shadow whether it intended to linger.

Thalor didn’t answer her question right away.

Instead, his smile lingered—too slow, too knowing. But then it faded, or perhaps shifted, drawn by something else. His gaze slid past her, casually, like wind curling through a curtain.

And then it fixed.

On someone.

“Who is that guy?” he asked, his voice still smooth, but quieter now—curious, not in the way most nobles asked questions, but the way a predator marks a movement in the underbrush.

“…Who?” she replied, instinctively, her brow dipping just slightly.

But she was already turning. Already following his gaze.

And when her eyes found the target, her breath hitched—only slightly, but enough.

Lucavion.

Of course it was him.

He stood a modest distance away now, half-lit by the ambient glow of the chandeliers, speaking to a girl whose presence caught attention even before the striking color of her hair did. Lavender. A shade you didn’t forget once you’d seen it.

Valeria Olarion.

’So that’s where you are.’

The girl stood easily at Lucavion’s side—confident, not deferential. And Lucavion, for all his usual inscrutable detachment, wasn’t ignoring her. His posture was slightly tilted. Not guarded. Not performative.

Open.

Priscilla’s mind moved quickly, each thought another string pulling taut.

She remembered that name from her reports. Valeria. House Olarion—low-standing compared to the crown’s circle, but recently notable for the girl’s performance as well as her achievements during the Andelheim Tournament.

A place that, strangely enough, had been one of the few points of clarity in Lucavion’s shadowy past.

When she had ordered a background trace on him, Andelheim had surfaced as a faint spark in an otherwise blank field. And Valeria Olarion? Her name had surfaced alongside his.

The phrasing had been subtle.

“Suspected personal familiarity. Observed repeated contact.”

Cold words for something that now, seen in person, looked like far more.

Not just familiarity.

Connection.

That was how she’d been informed.

Through parchment. Through whispers. Through crisp, filtered reports written by people who didn’t know the taste of a battlefield, but could spot deviation in routine from half a continent away. Everything about Lucavion had been scattered—deliberately opaque. But that name—Valeria Olarion—had surfaced with an odd consistency.

And now she saw it with her own eyes.

Not speculation.

Not suspicion.

Proof.

Priscilla didn’t speak right away. She watched the two of them—Lucavion with that signature calm, Valeria with that quiet fire in her eyes. It was subtle, but unmistakable. There was something between them. Not loud, not spoken. But present.

And that presence was dangerous.

Thalor’s voice slid back in before she could push the thought deeper.

“Why are you asking that?” she asked, her tone clipped, measured, laced with the faintest edge of caution.

Thalor shrugged, the gesture too smooth to be careless.

“Why?” he echoed, lifting his glass as if they were just two peers sharing idle gossip. “I’m just curious.”

But she didn’t believe him.

Not for a second.

And then he spoke again—this time, slower, words dipped in something deeper.

“Curious how someone like him managed to talk to Lucien like that.”

The words hung in the air like a net cast wide.

She looked at him sharply.

Because he wasn’t just being nosy.

He was interested.

And not in Lucavion’s scandal.

In Lucavion.

’You saw it too.’

That moment earlier. The way Lucien flinched. The way Lucavion held the floor like it was his throne and not a trap. Thalor had seen all of it—and was still processing.

And of course he would.

Because very few could speak to Lucien that way.

Fewer still could survive it.

Only a handful of individuals in the entire Empire had the standing, the raw presence, or the mind to call Lucien by name without consequence.

Thalor was one of them.

Lucien’s rival in every unspoken contest of supremacy.

The genius from the South.

The next great mage.

The one just behind the prince in the public eye—respected, adored, feared—but always second.

Always.

Thalor’s gaze didn’t drift from Lucavion, but his voice curved back toward her—quiet, smooth, and now laced with something sharper beneath the silk.

“You always had an eye for rare pieces, Priscilla,” he said, almost idly. “Though I must admit, I’m a little surprised.”

Her brow furrowed just slightly.

“Surprised?”

He finally turned to look at her again.

But this time, the glint in his gray eyes wasn’t amusement.

It was cruelty, disguised as curiosity.

“Someone like him,” Thalor murmured, swirling the liquid in his glass, “with that kind of presence… that kind of mind. You must’ve used quite the incentive to keep him circling your orbit.”

Her fingers stilled.

“I don’t follow,” she said carefully.

He smiled. Not wide. Not mocking.

Worse.

It was small. Precise. Designed to cut.

“I mean, I remember how furious you were when they suggested that your position in court had anything to do with your looks. How you insisted you’d rather die than barter yourself like one of those courtesan nobles.”

He tilted his head.

“But maybe you changed your stance?”

The implication slithered between them—undeniable.

Her breath stilled.

Not out of shock.

But out of fury.

It was always like this with him.

Back then, when things had cracked between them, it hadn’t been over politics or some grand betrayal.

She had broken the engagement.

She had ended it.

And Thalor, genius or not, heir or not—had never let it go.

’You still think you’re entitled to judge me. Like I betrayed you by choosing myself.’

Her jaw tightened.

Because it wasn’t the first time he’d made her feel this way—like something beautiful he’d dropped, and blamed for the shatter.

She met his eyes—unblinking.

But she could feel it.

His words had gotten to her.

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