Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 822: My man (2)

The fallout came not like fire—but frost.

Lucavion stood tall at the epicenter of a shattered calm, the projection sphere now dim in his hand like a finished performance. The nobles didn’t scream. They didn’t argue.

They simply stepped back.

Quietly.

Collectively.

Like dancers re-choreographing their positions.

The air didn’t buzz with outrage—it withdrew, peeled itself away from him, cautious, controlled. As if proximity to Lucavion might brand them with complicity. As if the truth he’d just unleashed was more dangerous than the lie they’d been ready to clap for.

And then—

Adrian spoke.

Not loudly.

But his voice carried the authority of decision.

“No one from Lorian will approach him,” he said. “Not tonight.”

Jesse didn’t look at him.

She didn’t need to.

She could feel Isolde’s gaze beside him—calm, composed, the strategist already calculating the fallout, already weighing loyalty against longevity.

“Make sure to not make a mistake,” Isolde said, her tone silk-clad steel. “Right?”

Jesse didn’t speak.

Didn’t argue.

She simply looked forward—past the nobles, past the rising din of polite conversation trying to reassemble the illusion of peace—toward him.

Lucavion stood alone now.

Not visibly wounded. Not faltering.

Just separate.

The space around him was no longer social—it was sacred. Dangerous. Marked by the sheer audacity of having spoken aloud what others only whispered in locked rooms.

And Jesse?

She stayed seated.

Because she had to.

Because Adrian was right. Because Isolde was precise.

Because to move now would cost more than just her standing.

But gods, she wanted to.

She could feel it—beneath her ribcage, that storm still screaming, still pacing. Her fingers were still curled too tight around her wineglass. Her eyes refused to stray.

He didn’t look toward her.

Of course he didn’t.

That wasn’t his way.

Lucavion didn’t seek comfort. He didn’t reach for lifelines.

He burned alone.

Always had.

Always would.

Unless—

And then—

The opportunity came.

Not as a crack—but a call.

A guy’s voice swept across the banquet like silk laced with iron, and the court shifted once again—this time not in fear, but in expectation.

His name appeared to be Thalor Draycott.

A duel. A performance. A measured clash wrapped in civility.

But Jesse saw through it.

So did Lucavion. His smile hadn’t changed.

Still calm. Still sardonic. Still that quiet refusal to bend.

And now—Rowen Drayke had stepped forward, his intent sharp as a blade yet to be drawn. The challenge was sealed. Thalor had set the board. Now Adrian had to move.

Jesse remained still—but not cold.

She watched Adrian carefully as he stepped to the center, his poise never faltering, even under the weight of hundreds of watching eyes.

“This is a fine proposal,” he said. Smooth. Diplomatic. Too clean to be anything but calculated.

And then—

He shifted it.

Redrew the game under the guise of culture, of Lorian formality—or rather, the lack of it. He dressed their defiance as simplicity, as custom. A masterstroke in misdirection.

But Jesse knew Adrian well enough to see it:

He wasn’t retreating.

He was choosing.

And when he turned back to the Lorian envoy—their side—and let his gaze pass across them like a sovereign appraising the ranks, Jesse already knew.

“Jesse,” Adrian said.

Not loudly.

Not kindly.

Just clearly.

Isolde’s head turned sharply, but she didn’t speak. Not right away. Her glance was sharp, calculating.

Jesse stood.

Not because she was eager.

Not because she had anything to prove.

But because she knew why he’d chosen her.

In Lorian, there was a custom.

When entering the foreign courts, when the Empire’s name needed defending without igniting full confrontation—one did not send their finest heir or their most diplomatic voice.

They sent the one who had bled for the Empire.

A lower-ranked noble. Proven on the battlefield. One who could not be accused of speaking above their station—yet whose reputation carried the weight of survival.

And in this banquet of silk and politics, Jesse was the ghost in armor.

Everyone knew her.

Not from salons or soirées.

But from war.

Adrian’s voice cut through the murmur of approval and side-glances.

“She will represent us,” he said, his tone regal but absolute. “Jesse Burns.”

The name echoed.

Not whispered.

Spoken.

And it struck different.

Because it wasn’t a court name. It wasn’t noble in the way these people respected. It was earned—etched in the blood of borders and the mud of skirmishes. Not everyone knew it. But those who did… stiffened slightly.

Rowen Drayke turned. His brow furrowed. Barely.

Lucavion?

His expression didn’t change.

Of course it didn’t.

But Jesse felt it.

The barest flicker of recognition.

Of memory.

He knows I’m coming.

She didn’t bow. Didn’t play coy.

She just stepped forward.

Purposefully.

Gratefully.

Because this—this farce of civility, this staged duel in the garden of politics—was her way in.

She wasn’t approaching him as a girl pining in shadows.

She wasn’t breaking rank to chase what she’d lost.

She was stepping forward as a representative.

Of her people.

Of her Empire.

Of herself.

Her boots echoed against the marble, sharp and steady. The slit in her formal uniform trailing like a scar. She passed nobles who barely masked their surprise—some curious, others faintly amused.

Let them watch.

Let them wonder why this was the one Loria had chosen.

Because Jesse knew the answer.

She knew it from the way Lucavion had stood alone.

Unflinching.

Unyielding.

She knew it from the way her own body still ached with memories she had never spoken aloud.

This was her chance.

To stand across from him.

To force a moment.

To see the man who had once carried her out of the battlefield’s maw and told her the world was too stupid to kill them both.

And maybe—

Maybe—

To make him look her in the eyes again.

Jesse stepped into the atrium light, the night breeze catching the edge of her braid.

She didn’t smile.

But…. she felt it in her chest.

Finally.

After all…

When her name was announced, Jesse didn’t glance at the nobles, didn’t look to Thalor or Rowen or the court’s twisted tapestry of veiled expectation.

She looked at him.

Straight at him.

Lucavion.

The man who once pulled her from ash and flame like it was nothing.

The man who had smiled through war and bureaucracy and grief like it was all part of some long joke he refused to let kill him.

And now—

He was looking back.

Right at her.

His expression didn’t falter entirely.

But it cracked.

Just for a moment.

His black eyes widened—not in fear, not in calculation—but in recognition.

It hit like a quiet thunderclap. That flicker in his gaze. That pause. That hesitation.

It was real.

He remembers.

The silence between them stretched—no words, no titles, no pretense.

And Jesse?

She smiled.

A slow, crooked thing. Not triumphant.

Just real.

’Hehehe…’

How could she not?

He knew her name.

Of all the things he could’ve forgotten—her rank, her house, the countless others from those bloody years—he hadn’t forgotten her.

Even though she would’ve loved the moment to be different—cleaner, maybe. Private. Not under chandelier light and diplomatic scrutiny.

But….

This?

This was fine too.

Because it wasn’t about the setting.

It was him.

And that expression on his face—that widening of his eyes, the subtle shift in his stance—that was more than she’d let herself hope for.

It wasn’t just recognition.

It was him.

Still Lucavion.

Still hers, in that strange, unspeakable way that had never belonged to romance or reason.

And now?

Now she was walking toward him.

With the court watching.

With her heart quiet for the first time in years.

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