Chapter 59: A Different Kind of Cold

Lucian’s gaze dropped first, drawn downward by the voice before he’d even had the chance to look up.

Glass slippers caught his eye first, a pale, frost-touched blue etched with the faint outline of an ice crest, and above them a gown in the same soft blue that seemed to carry its own quiet chill into the air around her, cool and composed all at once.

Whoever this was, the cut and craft of what she wore left no room for doubt. This wasn’t the dress of an ordinary noble. Even at a glance, everything about it spoke of someone standing near the very top of that hierarchy.

His gaze climbed higher, settling on a young woman close to his own age, her skin pale, almost luminous under the chandelier light.

This girl.

Lucian turned the moment over in his head, searching for a name to put to the voice that had greeted him so easily. Most of the staff in his own household barely registered his presence half the time, and yet this stranger spoke to him as though she’d known exactly who he was for years.

Then his attention caught on her hair, that same pale blue, and the answer clicked into place before he’d even finished the thought.

Only one family carried that shade among the upper nobility.

House Winter.

The memory surfaced almost immediately, a face from his Awakening ceremony at the cathedral, a Winter noblewoman who’d approached him then. This was her.

"Greetings, Lady Alicia Winter."

Even as he said it, a small knot of confusion tightened in his chest. Why would the daughter of Archduchess Amelia seek him out here, of all places, in a hall full of the empire’s most important families?

If word ever got out that the Archduchess’s daughter had been seen chatting warmly with him, it would set off more gossip than he cared to imagine.

Lucian did his best to keep his composure even despite that, careful not to give anyone watching a reason to misread the moment. Nothing about Alicia’s behavior struck him as strange or calculated. If anything, she looked faintly shy, a small, uncertain smile tugging at her mouth as she worked up to speaking with him at all.

"I didn’t expect we’d meet again so soon after the Awakening ceremony."

"You’re right, Lady Alicia. I didn’t expect it either," Lucian answered, a thread of nervousness slipping into his voice, still genuinely thrown by the fact that she’d approached him at all.

Awkwardness settled over him almost immediately after. He had no idea what to actually say to someone he barely knew, someone who, as far as he understood it, had no real reason to know him either.

"I honestly thought the earliest we’d cross paths again would be at Orvis Academy. Turns out I didn’t have to wait that long. Lucky I decided to come tonight."

Whatever Alicia felt in that moment showed plainly on her face, a happiness that looked almost too genuine, as though the only reason she’d bothered attending this event at all had been the chance to run into him.

Lucian’s mind rejected that thought almost as quickly as it formed. He couldn’t think of a single reason someone like her would want that.

And yet everything about how she carried herself suggested otherwise, an interest that seemed entirely real, mirroring, in its own way, the attention he’d just spent studying her without quite meaning to. Now it was Alicia doing the studying, her eyes lingering on him with open curiosity.

"You look different tonight, Lucian."

"Different?"

His clothing did stand out from the rest of the nobility gathered here, a silver cloak rarely worn by anyone in these circles.

"Does my outfit look strange to you, Lady Alicia?"

He glanced down at himself, wondering if something about it had gone wrong somewhere, though Rumelia herself had insisted earlier that the outfit suited him perfectly.

Alicia raised a hand quickly, as though to wave the misunderstanding away.

"No, not at all. Actually, it suits you very well, Lucian."

She looked entirely serious as she said it, which only left Lucian more confused about whatever she’d actually meant a moment ago.

"That’s not what I meant, though. I wasn’t talking about how you look on the outside."

Not about how I look?

So what was she talking about? Lucian turned the question over, still puzzling it out, when Alicia’s hand reached out and pressed lightly against the lower part of his chest before he’d even registered her moving.

Heat rushed straight into his cheeks the instant her palm made contact.

"Ah, sorry, I only wanted to check your Core. Your aura feels completely different from before, it’s honestly a lot stronger now, and I got curious."

She pulled her hand back as she said it, the gesture already finished before Lucian had fully processed what had just happened.

Whatever confusion he’d carried about his own outfit dissolved instantly, replaced by something far more pressing. Alicia hadn’t been talking about his clothes at all. She’d noticed his Mana Core, now sitting at the Arch Core tier, a jump he hadn’t announced to anyone.

And that raised a new problem entirely, one Lucian hadn’t considered until just now: reading someone’s true strength without ever seeing them draw on their power directly was nearly impossible. Alicia had just done exactly that, without any visible effort.

I thought I was keeping my mana suppressed carefully enough that no one nearby would notice the change, Lucian thought grimly.

Announcing a sudden Core advancement out of nowhere would only invite a flood of questions from his own family, questions he had no good answers for. They already knew he’d been stuck at the third Core tier for years without so much as a flicker of progress. A jump like this, overnight, unwitnessed, would be impossible to explain away cleanly.

Worse, it lined up almost too perfectly with his recent trip into the Chronos Domain, which meant any suspicion aimed his way now would only sharpen further.

His eyes flicked left, then right, checking quickly whether anyone nearby had caught what Alicia just said.

He opened his mouth, already forming the words to ask her, gently, to keep this to herself for now.

"Lady Alicia, about that—"

Before he could finish, something struck his shoulder from behind, hard enough to jolt him a step forward.

Lucian turned to see who’d bumped into him, only to find the culprit already walking straight past him toward Alicia’s side.

"Alicia, why are you still standing over here?"

"Mother’s been looking for you since earlier. She said she already sent word through one of the Sarnel staff to track down whoever you were looking for, so we just need to wait for them to report back."

The girl who’d just knocked into him didn’t so much as glance his way, let alone offer an apology, despite being the one who’d caused the collision in the first place.

Lucian didn’t particularly mind the slight. What caught his attention instead was how closely this girl resembled Alicia, the same pale blue in her gown and her slippers, the same shade of blue running through her hair.

Which meant she had to be Winter as well.

And her mention of searching for someone reminded Lucian instantly of what Sebast had told him earlier, that a guest had been asking after him.

If that guest had been Alicia all along, he still had no idea why.

"Sister, why are you being so rude to Lucian?"

Alicia’s scolding carried an odd weight to it, one that reminded Lucian this had to be Cecilia, the same Winter noblewoman who’d also been present at his Awakening ceremony.

The way Alicia corrected her, though, made it sound almost like their roles had been reversed, as if Alicia were the older sibling here instead of the younger.

Cecilia seemed to only just realize who exactly she’d bumped into. She turned fully toward him, eyes sweeping over him from head to toe.

Something close to surprise flickered across her face.

Unlike Alicia, Cecilia’s attention stayed fixed on the surface of things, his clothes, his build, both of which apparently struck her as considerably more striking than she’d expected.

Then she shook her head sharply, as if physically snapping herself out of whatever thought had just crossed her mind, clearly unsettled by how appealing she’d found him for that one unguarded second. Her arm shot out immediately after, blocking Alicia from stepping any closer to him.

Lucian had no idea what had just triggered that reaction. All he registered was the sudden, inexplicable protectiveness radiating off her.

If I remember right, she didn’t seem to like me much back at the Awakening either. But this feels like overkill, like she thinks I’m about to kidnap Alicia or something.

Because that was exactly what Cecilia’s stance looked like now, a sister planting herself firmly between her sibling and a suspected kidnapper.

"You’d do well to back away from my beautiful little sister, or I’ll freeze your legs solid too."

The words came out cold, and from the set of her jaw, she meant every syllable of it.

"Wait, why is this happening all of a sudden? I haven’t done anything."

Lucian’s protest came out half-startled, aimed at a threat he genuinely hadn’t seen coming. Beside him, Alicia had already turned on her sister, demanding to know what had gotten into her.

"Don’t think for a second that innocent act of yours is fooling my little sister."

"Lady Cecilia, what exactly are you implying?" Lucian’s tone sharpened, something in her accusation setting off a quiet alarm in the back of his mind.

"Ha. Are you really going to play dumb? Don’t tell me you don’t already know the real reason this whole event was thrown, to cover up whatever it is you’ve been doing."

What is she talking about? Why is she suddenly saying this entire party exists because of something I did?

Lucian’s curiosity sharpened into something closer to unease, desperate now to understand exactly what Cecilia meant.