Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 753: Conviction

As if summoned by the remark, soft footsteps echoed from above—and Elara emerged.

Her steps were calm, measured, her bearing as poised as ever—but there was a warmth today, a clarity in her expression that hadn’t been there since before the exams began. Her chestnut hair was loose down her shoulders, catching the morning light with polished softness, and her hazel eyes gleamed with gold beneath the glassy glaze of calm restoration.

Behind her, Reilan followed. Ash-brown hair combed neatly back, his usually sharp presence softened into something more composed. No longer the weary, simmering blade he’d been in recent days—today, he looked whole again. Present.

Aurelian blinked, then grinned. “Stars above, you do remember how stairs work. We were ready to send a scrying beacon.”

Selphine’s gaze swept over them with quiet appraisal. “You both look… alive. That’s a good start.”

Elara gave a theatrical gasp, hand to her chest. “Alive? What do you mean alive? Of course I’m alive. It just… took me a little longer to wake up, that’s all.”

Aurelian leaned forward, narrowing his eyes in mock scrutiny. “Couldn’t sleep last night, huh?”

She cleared her throat. “Ahem…”

“Ehehe…” He grinned wider, nudging Selphine. “Even our little Elowyn gets nervous, it seems.”

Selphine allowed herself a slight smirk. “Miraculous. We should alert the Healers’ Guild. A historic event.”

“Oh hush,” Elara muttered, but there was no bite to her tone. Just the ease of something familiar falling into place again. “Some of us actually needed rest. I was preparing my mental state for noble interaction.”

Aurelian gave a solemn nod. “Brave. Very brave.”

Behind her, Cedric—Reilan—shifted with faint amusement, his arms crossing as he leaned just slightly toward the banter, but didn’t interrupt it. Selphine turned her gaze to him next, expression cool but polite.

“Reilan,” she greeted. “Recovered, I see.”

He nodded once. “Mostly. Didn’t realize navigating formalwear would be the final trial.”

“Wait until the wine starts pouring,” Aurelian added. “That’s when the real duels begin.”

“Breakfast?” Selphine offered, gesturing toward the plates still warm on the table. “You need to be quick.”

“I will,” Cedric said simply, already moving to sit, his tone level but present—no longer distant the way it had been days ago.

Elara took the chair beside him with fluid ease, plucking a slice of toasted bread from the tray and biting into it with a deliberate hum of approval.

Aurelian raised his brow. “Well then. We’re really doing this.”

Elara glanced toward the window, where the golden towers of the Academy loomed just visible beyond the skyline.

“Yes,” she said. “We are.”

*****

But beneath the polished smile and toasted bread, the truth settled in her stomach like a coiled beast.

She had not slept.

Not really.

She had lain in bed with the covers drawn high, her breath steady only in appearance, her mind running itself ragged with memories that didn’t align—and ones that did far too well. The boy who had helped her up in Andelheim, who had saved her more than once, laughed with her over stolen peaches and cold tea.

And the boy who had destroyed her life.

Lucavion.

Luca.

She still couldn’t say it aloud. Not yet. The two names clashed like oil and fire inside her chest. But they belonged to the same man. That was the truth now. Inescapable. Irrefutable.

And it burned.

’Why didn’t I see it?’

’Was I that desperate to believe someone could care about me without asking for something in return?’

She pushed down the nausea that threatened to return, wrapping her hands tighter around the tea cup before her.

This wasn’t the time to unravel again.

Today wasn’t about him.

It was about them.

Isolde. Adrian.

The crown jewel and her loyal knife.

The two names that had kept her alive through exile, abandonment, pain. The two reasons she had bled herself dry training under Eveline, slept in rain-drenched ruins and frozen caves, clawed magic out of her broken core when no one else believed she still could.

Tomorrow… she would see them.

Not in shadow, not through whispers, not in dreams sharpened to nightmares. In flesh.

And she would smile.

She would bow.

She would play the game like the perfect little baron’s heir.

And when the moment came—

She would shatter them.

That knowledge steadied her now.

It was the steel in her spine, the center of her breath.

She reached for a slice of citrus and let its sharpness anchor her mouth, the bitterness oddly grounding. Selphine and Aurelian had resumed their bickering over whose house colors were more garish, Cedric had settled into a quiet rhythm of tea and watchfulness, and the air was warm with the kind of calm that always came before the storm.

Elara glanced once, briefly, toward the far edge of the terrace—toward the spire of the dueling tower visible between the mist-draped roofs.

He would be there too.

Luca.

She would not forget.

Not the sickening weight of her father’s eyes as he passed sentence without hearing a word from her lips.

Not the way his voice had rung out through the judgment chamber—“You are no daughter of mine.”

Not the sound of the doors slamming shut behind her as the Valoria crest was stripped from her robes.

And certainly not the image of Isolde, standing with a hand over her mouth, the picture of shocked nobility—

—but her eyes had smiled.

That twisted, angelic curve. The kind that pretended sympathy but dripped poison underneath.

’She knew.’

’She always knew.’

The whole thing had been sewn together long before Elara ever walked into that chamber.

A plot designed with precision.

And Lucavion had been the final thread.

He had lain beside her in that cursed illusion, the architect or the pawn—it hadn’t mattered then. He hadn’t denied it. Hadn’t protected her. He’d simply reached for her with dazed confusion and said nothing as her world was torn apart.

And now—now—he walked free.

Fought with grace. Danced like light itself bent to his will.

Lucavion.

Luca.

Elara forced herself to swallow the citrus bite in her mouth, her face placid, but her eyes sharp as razors turned inward.

’You’ll pay as well.’

’Even if you didn’t orchestrate it—you let me bleed. And I will not leave that unpunished.’

She would make sure the name Lucavion would never be uttered again with awe.

Only fear.

—

The scene shifted—

Golden morning light now pooling along the marble walkways as they descended into the inner gardens of the Academy’s east wing. Petal-silver trees swayed gently above, their translucent leaves filtering the sunlight into winking halos along the path.

Selphine walked just ahead, her stride languid but poised, her silk half-cloak brushing over her boots with a whisper. Aurelian lagged a few steps behind, spinning a small conjuration of illusory fire in his palm with the idle mischief of a bored cat.

Cedric—Reilan—walked to Elara’s right, his gaze on the path but his presence attuned to hers, ever so subtly.

“Elowyn,” Selphine said, glancing sidelong, her expression unreadable but her voice light. “You’re awfully quiet. Picturing your triumph already?”

The name didn’t jar her anymore.

Not today.

She rolled it across her mind like a polished stone.

Elowyn Caerlin.

The dutiful daughter of the Caedrim Reach. The clever one. Soft-spoken. Bright. Mysterious.

Elowyn smiled faintly. “You could say that,” she replied, tone warm with just enough weight to feel real. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this event. I suppose I’m savoring the approach.”

Selphine raised a single brow. “Hmm. You’re dangerously good at that tone.”

Elara glanced at her, smile widening a fraction. “What tone?”

“The kind that makes me wonder if you’re planning something or simply imagining a poetry reading.”

Aurelian snorted from behind. “Knowing Elowyn, it’s both. Probably a death haiku.”

“Not a bad idea,” Elara mused, still smiling. “There’s elegance in efficiency.”

The laughter among them felt easy—but only because she had grown used to this rhythm. Used to being Elowyn. She understood now why Eveline had involved Selphine and Aurelian in the truth.

Not just for safety.

But for fluency.

So she could wear the mask without it slipping. So that even when cracks splintered inside her, the outside would hold.

Because it had to.

Because she was almost there.

Isolde would be in attendance today.

Adrian would be beside her, as always. Her sword. Her shadow.

And somewhere in that crowd, Lucavion—no, Luca—would be watching too.

Elara’s steps didn’t falter, but her eyes narrowed on the path ahead, soft gold catching in the lashes like sunlight through glass.

’You will all see me again—not as the girl you cast aside. Not as the shadow you created.’

’But as the reckoning you deserve.’

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