Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

’Why did I react to Elara like that?’

The question accompanied Lucavion away from the Western Library.

His boots moved over pale stone still carrying a little of the day’s warmth, though the air above it had already sharpened with night. A colder current travelled downhill from the Academy’s northern grounds, slipping through the open courtyards and between the towers before finding every convenient gap in his coat.

—Fssshhh.

Leaves turned overhead.

Somewhere farther across the grounds, a bell gave a single muted note.

—Gong...

Lucavion breathed in.

Cold air reached deep enough to clear the last stuffiness of the library from his lungs. Damp grass, stone, night-blooming flowers from one of the gardens, and the faint metallic tang of mana from the lamps all mixed beneath it.

The Academy looked different after dark.

Its daytime crowds had thinned into smaller streams. Students crossed the broad paths in pairs or alone, robes and uniforms briefly catching beneath pools of magical light before darkness took them again. Windows remained illuminated across the lecture buildings, some warmly gold, others carrying the blue-white glow of active formations. High above, one of the distant towers released a slow spiral of mana that climbed several dozen spans before dissolving into the sky.

Quite peaceful.

Suspiciously so.

Lucavion shoved both hands into his pockets and walked.

’Maybe the place saves its attempts to kill students for examination hours.’

A reasonable institutional policy.

His mouth almost curved.

Almost.

The question remained.

’Why did I react to Elara like that?’

Lucavion clicked his tongue.

Apparently ignoring it had reached the end of its usefulness.

Fine.

He could think.

Thinking had rarely killed him.

His pace settled into the easy rhythm of someone with nowhere urgent to be, while his attention quietly returned to Private Room Four.

Elara had been standing near him.

That much was simple.

She had spent the better part of the lesson staring at his hand with the increasingly alarming fascination of a scholar who had discovered something strange enough to forget that the strange thing possessed opinions.

He had told her to stop.

She had approached anyway.

Slowly.

Very slowly.

Lucavion remembered that part with some irritation.

’As though approaching a particularly handsome wild animal.’

She had asked for his hand.

He had refused.

That should have been the end of the matter according to several philosophies Lucavion personally considered quite excellent.

Elara disagreed.

Naturally.

His boot crossed the edge of another lamp’s glow.

—Tap.

Light swept over him, then slid away behind his shoulder.

He remembered her finally taking his hand.

Her skin had been warmer than his.

That detail had registered first.

Then the pressure of her fingers, careful rather than forceful, repositioning his own as though she were trying to discover where the tremor began. She had moved his thumb. Adjusted the angle of his wrist.

And something inside him had lurched.

Lucavion’s pace slowed.

That word came closest.

Lurched.

His body had moved before the thought arrived, the same way his hand had attempted to complete the broken formation before he consciously understood what Elara had removed.

Except this time something else had accompanied it.

Something he had conveniently neglected to mention.

Even to himself.

Lucavion stared ahead.

The path blurred beneath another sweep of wind.

—Fwoosh.

For one instant inside that room—

He had seen something.

His steps stopped.

The memory of the vision came reluctantly, more impression than picture.

White.

That was first.

A pale surface beneath his hand.

Or perhaps cloth.

His fingers had been smaller.

Ink darkened the side of one of them, staining skin around the nail.

Someone stood close enough that he could see the edge of a sleeve beside his wrist.

Then another image had broken through the first.

Hair.

Pale gold.

A face turning toward him.

Elara.

Younger.

Much younger.

The vision had lasted less than a heartbeat.

Yet the feeling beneath it—

Lucavion frowned.

’Wait.’

He reached after it.

The pale surface.

The ink.

Elara turning.

What had she been wearing?

Where were they?

Was that House Valoria?

House Thorne?

A classroom?

He tried to sharpen the image.

Something moved behind Elara.

A second figure—

—Throb.

Pain struck behind his temple.

Lucavion’s step broke.

His shoulder twisted as one foot landed poorly against the edge of the path, and he caught himself before the stumble became anything more embarrassing.

"...What?"

His hand rose toward his head.

The pressure pulsed again.

—Thum.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

The image scattered.

Gold hair became light.

The pale desk became nothing.

The second figure vanished before gaining a face.

Lucavion pressed two fingers against his temple and stood very still while the Academy continued around him.

Footsteps passed somewhere behind.

A laugh carried briefly from another courtyard.

The wind moved through ornamental grasses beside the path with a dry whisper.

—Ssshhh.

His breathing steadied.

The pain receded slowly.

Lucavion opened his eyes.

The nearest mana lamp had acquired a faint halo around its edges.

He blinked until it sharpened.

’Wonderful.’

He resumed walking, slower now.

This felt familiar.

The realization arrived several steps later.

Tier II.

The written examination.

Auxiliary sequences.

A phrase had caught inside his head that morning, dragging ink, a desk, the scrape of a quill and an old voice after it. He had tried reaching farther then as well.

The result had been pressure behind his temple and a memory that retreated the harder he pursued it.

Lucavion rubbed the side of his head.

’So pushing is a bad idea.’

Useful information.

It would have been more useful before the headache.

He continued along the curving path.

His mind felt slightly muddied now, the edges of individual thoughts refusing to separate as cleanly as usual. Fatigue could explain part of it. The Mana Control Trial had demanded more than he preferred to admit, the examinations had been relentless, and he had just spent an evening trying to learn formal spellcraft while Elara treated his subconscious like an archaeological site.

Perhaps he had simply pushed too long.

Possible.

Lucavion’s expression tightened.

There was another possibility.

’Did Elara do something?’

He considered it for several seconds.

She had manipulated his mana pathways only indirectly, and he would have felt a foreign current entering his body. Her frost remained controlled throughout the lesson. The strange silver light associated with her second affinity had never meaningfully manifested either.

Could some subtler technique have slipped beneath his perception?

Maybe.

He disliked assuming impossibility merely because he lacked the knowledge to identify the method.

Yet the headache had appeared before tonight.

That weakened the idea considerably.

Lucavion exhaled.

’Then the problem is me.’

How comforting.

His fingers tapped once against the outside of his pocket.

The vision itself remained more troublesome.

Elara had been there.

Or he thought she had.

Lucavion possessed enough experience with damaged memories to distrust the first image his mind offered him. Present knowledge contaminated old fragments remarkably easily. He knew Elowyn was Elara. He had spent hours staring at her tonight. Perhaps his mind had simply taken an older scene and inserted the most convenient face into the empty space.

That explanation worked.

Mostly.

Except the recoil had begun first.

And then the image.

Lucavion’s gaze lowered.

’Is it related to Isolde?’

The thought slowed him more effectively than the headache had.

A colder gust travelled across the courtyard.

His coat shifted against his legs.

Isolde sat in the center of too many missing pieces.

His old engagement.

The scandal.

Elara.

Fragments of the former Lucavion’s life that became unreliable whenever they approached that period.

Even his knowledge of the original story had grown increasingly useless where the reality beneath those relationships was concerned.

If the vision belonged to that same damaged region—

Lucavion’s jaw tightened.

He wanted to chase the thought.

His temple gave a faint warning pulse.

He reconsidered.

’Yes, yes. Message received.’

His mind could have its little victory for now.

The Academy had other plans for his attention anyway.

Lucavion became aware of the gazes before he consciously registered the building ahead.

Several.

From the steps.

Two near the entrance.

Another through one of the common windows.

He lifted his eyes.

Residential Block 7-A stood across the final stretch of courtyard.

’Ah.’

He had arrived.

A group of students occupied the broad entrance steps, conversations continuing with slightly less enthusiasm than they had possessed before Lucavion entered view. Unlike the seniors in the library, these people knew perfectly well who he was.

One young mage looked toward him.

Then another.

A conversation near the door paused for a fraction too long.

Lucavion kept walking.

The sensation proved unexpectedly useful.

Familiar eyes.

Known expectations.

A room full of people who had already decided whether he was amusing, irritating, dangerous, interesting, or some unfortunate combination of all four.

Simple.

He knew this game.

By the time he reached the first step, the haze around his thoughts had begun settling.

Lucavion looked toward one student whose attention remained a little too fixed upon him.

Their eyes met.

The student immediately became fascinated by his companion’s conversation.

Lucavion’s mouth curved.

Better.

"Evening."

A few answered.

Someone farther back muttered something that earned a suppressed laugh.

Lucavion continued inside.

The building’s warmth met him after the cold courtyard, carrying the familiar scents of polished wood, dinner lingering from somewhere downstairs, bath steam, paper, and too many young cultivators sharing one residence.

His shoulders loosened.

Whatever waited inside his memories could wait several more minutes.

He climbed the stairs.

By the time Lucavion reached his corridor, the headache had thinned into a dull pressure easily ignored. He unlocked his door, pushed it inward, and stepped through.

—Click.

A pair of luminous eyes watched him from the room.

Vitaliara sat upon the back of his chair, midnight fur catching a faint silver sheen beneath the mana lamp. Her tail moved once.

Slowly.

Dangerously.

[You are finally here.]

The voice entered his mind carrying the unmistakable displeasure of someone who had personally suffered from every minute of his absence.

Lucavion paused halfway through removing his coat.

’What?’

Vitaliara’s tail gave another slow sweep behind her.

Then she jumped.

—Fwmp.

Lucavion had just enough time to lift one arm before a bundle of midnight fur landed against his chest, claws catching lightly against his shirt before she climbed the remaining distance with complete disregard for the fact that his shoulder had never been offered as public property.

"Comfortable?"

[Moderately.]

"How generous."

He finished pulling the coat from one arm while Vitaliara balanced across the other shoulder. Her weight barely registered anymore. She had spent enough time treating him as a combination of transportation, furniture, and occasionally heated bedding that his body had long since learned to compensate.

Lucavion tossed the coat toward the nearby chair.

—Fwap.

It landed across the back.

Vitaliara immediately leaned closer to his neck.

—Sniff.

Lucavion paused.

Her nose moved once against his collar.

Then again.

—Sniff. Sniff.

His eyes shifted sideways.

"Are you planning to eat me?"

[You met that girl.]

Lucavion’s hand, halfway toward loosening the cuff around his wrist, stopped.

Vitaliara sniffed once more.

[Elara.]

His eyebrows rose.

For perhaps a second, the headache from outside disappeared beneath something considerably simpler.

Suspicion.

"How did you know?"

Vitaliara drew herself upright.

[Hmph.]

Lucavion waited.

She stared toward the opposite side of the room with the solemn dignity of a mythical beast who had apparently decided that answering questions was beneath her evolutionary station.

He tilted his head.

"No answer?"

[Hmph.]

A faint smile touched his mouth.

There she was.

Lucavion walked farther into the room, Vitaliara remaining perched upon him while he crossed toward the desk. A small stack of notes waited where he had abandoned them earlier, alongside a half-empty cup that had long since surrendered whatever warmth it once possessed.

He picked it up.

Considered it.

Put it back down.

"Very mysterious."

[Unlike certain humans, I do not feel compelled to explain everything I know.]

"That sounds remarkably convenient."

Her tail struck the back of his shoulder.

—Fwp.

Lucavion laughed under his breath.

The sound came easier than it had outside.

His mind still carried the residue of the headache, and the vision remained somewhere behind it, pale and irritatingly incomplete, but Vitaliara’s indignation had already begun pulling his attention into a much simpler battlefield.

He knew the rules here.

Mostly.

"Well," he began, "she offer—"

[I did not ask.]

The interruption arrived so quickly that Lucavion’s mouth remained slightly open around the unfinished word.

He blinked.

Vitaliara inspected one paw.

Lucavion slowly closed his mouth.

Then opened it again.

"But you were curious."

Her paw stopped.

[Who said that?]

Lucavion turned his head as far as her position allowed.

Vitaliara’s luminous eyes met his.

There was perhaps a little too much attention inside them for someone who had just declared herself entirely uninterested.

His smile returned.

"I heard it from your gaze."

Silence.

Vitaliara stared at him.

Lucavion stared back.

Her tail became perfectly still.

’...’

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