Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 812: Thalor Draycott (3)

Thalor’s fingers curled slightly at his side—an involuntary echo of the tension that had just raked through him.

He didn’t look shaken. He wouldn’t allow that. But beneath the smooth surface of his expression, behind the casually lifted chin and the polite half-smile, his thoughts were snapping into order with surgical speed.

The spell…

It wasn’t just any charm, any idle manipulation. It was his own creation—Scion’s Thread. A tether woven not from raw mana, but from intent—concentrated, balanced, intimate. It required more than power. It demanded focus. Singular focus.

Every spell of that caliber came with cost. For Thalor, that cost was concentration. Not a problem, usually. He could pin a soul to the floor with a smile, so long as nothing interrupted him.

But in that moment—just one blink, one flicker of attention—

He’d lost control.

Not because Priscilla fought back. No.

Because Lucavion had slipped into the space behind her like a shadow he hadn’t accounted for.

And that was the part that gnawed at him.

Why didn’t I sense him?

Not his footsteps. Not his mana. Not even his intention. It was as if Lucavion had been water—formless, unassuming, until he pressed.

That “slipped hand”—that mild voice—was no mistake. No matter how politely it was framed. The pressure had been surgical. Perfectly placed.

The spell had unraveled exactly where Thalor’s grip was weakest.

“Ahem. My bad,” Lucavion had said. “My hand slipped.”

His smile never wavered.

Too slow.

Too serene.

Too perfect.

Thalor gave him the benefit of doubt—for a second. Because a man who smiled like that might be fool, might be lucky.

But then—

Lucavion brushed his lapel.

“It seems I’ve become a little sensitive to mana.”

Thalor’s pulse slowed.

That phrase.

That fucking phrase.

Not too much. Not loud. Not even directed at him.

But Thalor wasn’t just any fool at a banquet.

He heard it for what it was.

A message.

A line drawn in silk and shadow.

He felt it.

Lucavion had felt his spell.

That wasn’t just good.

That was rare.

You couldn’t feel Scion’s Thread unless you had clarity. Not brute force. Not bloodline talent. You needed refinement. Sensory training. A philosophical understanding of what mana wanted to be, not just what it was.

Thalor’s eyes didn’t narrow. They didn’t flare.

They simply read.

Lucavion stood with perfect poise, as if none of this had meaning.

And yet—

You sensed it.

You felt the shape of a spell that bent light, muted sound, and tunneled through a single mind without disturbing the air around it.

You noticed.

Thalor’s jaw ticked once, almost imperceptibly.

’You really are interesting.’

He hadn’t expected to find someone like this tonight. Hadn’t expected the ballroom to deliver more than wine and posturing.

Thalor’s fingers moved with a flick—precise, practiced.

The stain vanished instantly. Not just removed, but reversed. Wine unmade, thread re-woven, color restored to perfection. As natural as drawing breath. The gesture was elegant. Effortless. Regal.

And beneath it?

A message.

Not unlike Lucavion’s.

He straightened his sleeve slowly, smoothing the cuff with two fingers as he turned—not quickly, not aggressively. Just with the poised weight of a man who’d never once needed to rush.

Then, the smile.

Soft. Social. Hollow.

“Well then,” Thalor said, stepping back half a pace, letting the air between them stretch like a cord. “This saves me a letter. I’ve been meaning to meet you, actually.”

His tone wrapped in silk, dipped in courtesy, and lined—barely—with condescension.

“Your name’s been… circling, let’s say.”

The implication hung, unbothered, like incense.

Circling. As if Lucavion were not quite a figure yet—just a whisper. A footnote.

“How nice of you to come all this way.”

Subtle dominance. Not shouted. Not forced.

Merely stated.

But Lucavion?

Lucavion didn’t even blink.

The smile he returned was nearly identical—delicate, tempered, tinged with something far too patient to be submission.

“I also wanted to meet you,” Lucavion replied, tone polite, light—studied.

Then he paused.

Tilted his head.

And let the words fall like scalpels.

“Though I assume there’s a misconception,” he said, each syllable clean. “I didn’t come here to meet you.”

Not cold.

Not rude.

Surgical.

“I was just heading out to get some fresh air,” Lucavion continued, his gaze flicking, deliberate, toward the terrace. “The air in the banquet hall felt… ionized.”

Ionized.

The moment the word slipped from Lucavion’s lips—

“Ionized.”

—Thalor’s eyes narrowed.

Not dramatically. Not enough for the room to notice.

But inwardly, the shift was violent.

Ionized.

A term not yet adopted by common mages. Not yet echoed in lecture halls or whispered among the arcane-obsessed nobility. No, this wasn’t street-corner vocabulary or court-banter flair.

This was new.

Precise.

And more damning than anything Lucavion had said so far.

Thalor didn’t breathe.

Because his spell—Scion’s Thread—used ionized air.

It was part of the architecture. Not the visual layer. Not the sensory bait.

The structure.

A recent advancement pioneered in Tower labs, developed quietly by upper-circle researchers. The ionization was necessary to guide the intent-based tether. It changed how the spell anchored to targets, how it blended into ambient energy.

No one outside the Circle should’ve known that.

The technique wasn’t published. Wasn’t demonstrated. It was theorized in backrooms and penned in encrypted documents under layered glyph-locks.

And yet—Lucavion had said it.

Like a passing comment. Like a man noting the temperature of his tea.

He felt it.

Worse.

He understood it.

Thalor’s mind snapped into motion.

’Did someone tell him?’

It couldn’t be intuition. Coincidence was out of the question. You don’t just guess the atmospheric conditions tied to a high-tier tethering spell.

’Does he have connections?’

That… that was a problem.

Because if Lucavion knew—actually knew—how the spell functioned…

Then someone was feeding him information from inside the Tower.

From his Circle.

And if that were true?

Then Lucavion wasn’t just dangerous.

He was compromised.

Wired into places he had no business being.

Inside the Tower. Inside the Circle.

The implications spiraled like knives through silk.

Did he have a backer?

Was this some kind of quiet play—one Thalor hadn’t seen?

No.

No, that didn’t fit.

Lucavion didn’t act like someone banking on borrowed knowledge.

He acted like someone who’d earned it.

And that… made it worse.

Thalor kept the smile on his face.

But his gaze?

It darkened.

If that’s the case…

Then the game was different. Entirely different.

Lucavion wasn’t just a man with sharp eyes and good instincts.

He was something else.

A player.

And not one of the court-polished, lineage-sheltered types Thalor had grown so accustomed to dismantling with ease.

No.

Lucavion was subtle. Understated. But behind that quiet poise and untucked elegance, Thalor could feel it now—design.

This wasn’t luck.

This was someone threading himself through the undercurrents. Someone who knew too much, moved too precisely, and spoke like he had already read the next three pages of the conversation.

Thalor should’ve felt cornered.

But all he felt was thrill.

Like the stretch of a blade before it met resistance.

’So you’ve been hiding this…’

His own pulse quickened—not from fear, but challenge.

Good.

It had been too long.

But even in the thrill, the annoyance itched at him.

Lucavion wasn’t deferring.

Wasn’t adjusting.

Wasn’t even blinking.

He wasn’t posturing—but he wasn’t yielding, either.

And that… that was galling.

Thalor’s voice slipped through the pause with velvet tension.

“Ionized air, hm?”

A faint tilt of the head. A study in mild surprise.

“Such an… academic term. I wasn’t aware it had made its way into common parlance.”

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