Chapter 1178: The Crime She Cannot Name

"Do you truly believe the Academy would have stopped looking if you had accepted that man’s hand?"

Elara’s fingers tightened against the edge of the covered formation plate.

"That is a false choice," she said. "The alternatives were not accepting Gervase or allowing you to humiliate him before the entire Rotunda. I could have refused him without your intervention."

"You could have."

Lucavion’s agreement came too readily. He remained seated across from her, one hand resting over his gathered notes, without the defensive tension she had expected after being accused of misjudging the consequences.

Elara waited, certain there would be more.

"If you had accepted," he continued, "Gervase would have acquired a recognized association with Elowyn Caerlin. Nothing binding, perhaps, but enough to approach again without appearing intrusive. Enough to offer assistance, introduce you to his acquaintances and ask questions about the household he intended to support."

"I would not have accepted."

"Then suppose you refused him privately."

Lucavion drew one page from the stack and turned it upon the table, placing its blank side upward. His finger marked a point near its center.

"Gervase approaches the daughter of an obscure baron. She possesses no affiliation strong enough to make refusing him advantageous, yet she rejects whatever position he offers." His finger moved away from the first point. "What does he do next?"

"He might take offense."

"He would certainly take offense. More importantly, he would want to know why."

Elara had no immediate contradiction.

Gervase would not have regarded her refusal as preference alone. A minor noblewoman did not easily dismiss the interest of someone with his standing, especially after entering the Rotunda without an established affiliation. He would have searched for another influence, a hidden promise or some weakness in House Caerlin’s circumstances that had allowed Elowyn to believe she could refuse him safely.

She could try to use the excuse of the grades.

A new name, a provincial title and a few convincing records could carry someone through its doors long enough to establish a position. That was precisely why Gervase’s approach had been so dangerous. He had not merely offered assistance; he had declared that Elowyn Caerlin’s temporary identity was the reason he wished to draw close to her.

Elara could have refused him under the pretense of her grades. She could have claimed that her character card showed that his interest unreasonable. But would Gervase have accepted that explanation?

He would have known that the excuse was insufficient. A student with Elowyn’s results might reject his offer, but she would not possess the standing to dismiss his interest without consequence. If he insisted that he was concerned only with her exam identity, how could she prove that he was lying? She could not. Any attempt to accuse him would become an accusation against a well-connected student who had offered her an opportunity.

Eventually, she would have been forced to confront him directly, making his hostility public before she had the influence to withstand it, or accept his terms and allow him to place himself beside her. A private refusal would not have ended his approach. It would only have given him time to recast it as concern, patience or generosity until refusing him became more difficult than accepting.

The inquiry might have remained quieter, but quiet did not mean harmless.

"And a public refusal?" Lucavion asked.

Elara looked at the blank page between them. "Creates hostility."

"Yes. It also creates witnesses."

"That is hardly an advantage when those witnesses become interested in my identity."

"No, but it prevents Gervase from later presenting the exchange differently. He cannot claim that you accepted his assistance, misunderstood his proposal or allowed him a place beside you that he merely continued to occupy."

Elara’s gaze rose from the page. "Because you occupied it first."

"For the duration of one dance."

"You made yourself appear to be more than a convenient partner."

"I made myself appear to be the reason his approach failed."

The quiet certainty behind the words brought her attention fully back to him.

"But why?"

The question left Elara before she could decide how much of it she intended to reveal.

Lucavion’s finger remained upon the blank page between them. He had explained what his intervention changed and why placing himself beside her had denied Gervase an easier position. None of that explained why Lucavion had chosen to bear the attention in the first place.

Why had he come to her at the Rotunda? Why had he involved himself in a dispute that should not have concerned him? Why had he allowed Gervase—and every noble watching them—to mistake one dance for an association worth remembering?

’Does he truly like me?’

The possibility entered too easily and disturbed her far more than it deserved.

No. That could not be the explanation.

He knew Elowyn Caerlin, not Elara Valoria. They had met only after entering the Academy, scarcely two weeks before the Rotunda. Lucavion might flirt without restraint and approach boundaries merely to watch her reaction, but he was not foolish enough to mistake brief interest for devotion. He certainly was not the sort of man who would fall in love with someone he had only just met.

’Then why protect her?’

Lucavion withdrew his hand from the page. "Why did I do it?"

He repeated the question slowly, his eyes remaining upon hers. Elara could not tell whether he had recognized the direction of her thoughts or merely enjoyed the fact that she had finally asked something less defensible than strategy.

Then he raised one hand between them.

Two fingers extended.

"Peace."

Elara stared at the gesture. "Eh?"

For several seconds, Lucavion maintained an expression of complete seriousness. Then a quiet laugh escaped him.

"Hehe..."

Her bewilderment hardened into irritation. "Have you finally exhausted your ability to form an intelligible answer?"

"Not at all." His raised fingers moved slightly, drawing her attention back to them. "Two."

"Two?"

"Two reasons," Lucavion clarified, lowering his hand only after ensuring that she had understood. The humor remained near the corners of his mouth, but something more deliberate had entered his gaze. "You asked why I interfered. The answer is that I had two reasons."

His hand had lowered only slightly. Lucavion kept both fingers raised while his expression settled into something less playful.

"The first is simple. I dislike men such as Gervase."

Elara waited for the inevitable qualification.

"He offers someone a path after ensuring every other path appears worse," Lucavion continued. "Then, when they accept, he calls it gratitude. People like him are fond of mistaking a lack of alternatives for consent."

The words carried none of his earlier humor. He did not speak as though repeating an abstract principle learned from a book; the distaste sat too naturally within his voice, worn smooth by familiarity.

Elara remembered his words during their dance—being kept near while useful, decorative while circumstances permitted it, then discarded once the room no longer had a place for him.

She did not ask whether he had learned that lesson personally.

"That explains why you disliked his approach," Elara said. "It does not explain why you involved yourself on my behalf."

Lucavion looked at her for a moment.

Then one of his raised fingers folded down.

The other remained extended.

He leaned across the cleared table before Elara understood what he intended. His hand passed above the blank page, and the tip of his remaining finger touched the end of her nose.

"You."

Her heart struck hard enough to empty every prepared response from her mind.

Cold reacted before thought did. Frost spread from the bridge of her nose and climbed over Lucavion’s fingertip in a pale ring, pushing his hand away. He withdrew with irritating ease, the ice breaking into fine crystals before they could bind his knuckle.

"Kukuku..."

"What—" Elara stopped and gathered her expression. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what it sounded like."

"It sounded like nothing resembling an explanation."

"Hehe..." Lucavion brushed the remaining frost from his finger. His amusement returned, but he did not turn the answer into some extravagant declaration. "You had already decided to refuse him. I did not make that choice for you."

"Then what did you choose?"

His gaze remained upon hers.

"Whether you would stand alone when everyone saw it."

Elara’s heartbeat had not yet returned to its proper rhythm.

He meant Elowyn Caerlin. He could only mean Elowyn Caerlin—the difficult student he had known for scarcely two weeks, whose circumstances had become entangled with his own through examinations, wagers and the Rotunda. Whatever interest drove him could not possess the history her body insisted upon hearing inside those words.

Lucavion leaned back, restoring the distance between them as though he had not disturbed it at all.

"That was the second reason," he said. "Nothing more complicated than that."

Elara refused to accept the simplicity of it.

"But why?" she pressed. "Why would you decide that for someone you had known for scarcely two weeks?"

Lucavion answered with a small shrug. Whatever seriousness had entered his voice disappeared beneath the familiar ease of his posture. Then he pointed toward the covered formation plate and the materials Elara had arranged for his lesson.

"Why are you here?"

Her brows drew together. "What do you mean?"

"You have your own courses, future examinations and matters that are considerably more important than teaching a martial student how to produce an elementary light." His finger moved across the diagrams, the prepared ink and the corrections she had set aside for him. "Yet you prepared all of this and remained until I succeeded. Why?"

"Because we made a promise."

"Exactly."

Elara stared at him. "Exactly what? What do you—"

"I made a promise as well."

The interruption stopped her.

Lucavion rose before she could demand the identity of the person to whom that promise had been made. He gathered his notes beneath one arm, then winked at her as though he had not placed another question precisely where the previous one had finally begun to settle.

"That is all for today, dear teacher."

"You do not decide when—"

He turned away with a light flutter of loose parchment and reached the door before the frost gathering beneath Elara’s fingers could provide a suitable objection. His hand settled upon the handle, but he paused long enough to glance back at her.

The amusement in his eyes made it impossible to determine whether he referred to the lesson, the argument or the answer he had refused to complete.

"I hope you were satisfied."

------------A/N------------

Sorry for the lack of daily uploads. I am trying a new approach. Now that I have moved to Scrivener from word, I am trying to group the Chapters as "Acts" where we have a one sequence of action for several Chapters. I am currently considering if I should post a whole act once, or split them.

For instance, this act took more than 2 days of work, which was the reason I was a bit late. I could also post the 3 Chapters yesterday if necessary.

Looking for the feedback.