Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 786: Choice (4)

If she remained quiet, if she looked away, if she allowed this room to swallow her voice… then Lucavion’s side of the board would move without her. He would never look back. He wouldn’t be cruel. But he would no longer wait.

And the moment would pass.

She would remain a shadow in a dress.

But if she stepped forward now—

She wouldn’t just be choosing Lucavion.

She would be becoming someone else.

She’d be renouncing the quiet survival that had defined her since her exile from Lucien’s inner circle.

She’d be declaring that her silence was not submission.

’…You really played well, didn’t you?’ she thought, her fingers flexing slightly at her sides.

Not bitterly.

Not even begrudgingly.

Just… aware.

She hadn’t understood that day in the Sanctum.

Not fully.

But now?

Now, as her gaze met his across the hall, something ancient and cold inside her cracked.

And something brighter stirred underneath.

She stepped forward.

Not grandly.

Not theatrically.

Just enough.

The curtain of whispers behind her shifted.

She could feel the room breathe differently now.

The red of her eyes caught the chandelier’s glint.

And then—her voice came.

Clear. Unshaking.

“I was there.”

A pause.

And then, quieter—just loud enough to burn.

“And everything he said… was true.”

*****

She stood alone.

Not by accident, nor oversight.

But by design.

Lucavion’s eyes didn’t just see her—they registered every fine detail. The contrast between the scarlet velvet curtain and the soft shimmer of her silver-white hair. The stillness of her figure, the way her back resisted the instinct to shrink beneath the banquet’s weighty silence. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. She simply stood there, as if the scrutiny of hundreds were no heavier than autumn wind.

Ghost in the Velvet, Mireilla had called her just now.

And now, the name settled over her like a crown she never asked to wear.

No attendants at her side. No nobles clinging to favor. Just her, watching from the fringe—seen only when one remembered to look.

Lucavion’s lips curved—not mockingly, but knowingly. He raised his glass slightly, like a toast no one else deserved to witness.

’Now, the choice is up to you.’

Not a demand.

And then—her voice cut through the banquet air.

Not trembling.

Not soft.

Not lost in polite tones or veiled courtesies.

But loud.

Louder than it should have been from a girl who had been taught to whisper, to watch, to wait.

“I was there.”

The room stopped breathing.

Every goblet paused mid-lift. Every conversation strangled in its throat. Every noble, every student, every instructor turned not toward Reynard—not even toward Lucavion—

—but toward her.

And she did not falter.

Her chin lifted. Her red eyes, gleaming beneath the chandelier’s frostlight, locked forward with a steadiness that left no space for question.

“I was there,” she said again, clearer. “On the terrace. I saw House Crane’s men approach the baron’s children. I saw the threats. The arrogance. The cruelty.”

Her voice didn’t rise.

It didn’t need to.

It struck like iron shaped into truth.

“They weren’t protecting tradition. They weren’t guiding anyone. They were humiliating children because they could.”

A tremor passed through the court—not chaos. Not yet.

But the shift had begun.

Because the girl who had always stood silent—

—was no longer hiding.

“They used their name to silence protest. Their status to justify dominance. Their strength… to belittle.”

She turned, just slightly—enough to face Reynard.

Not with hatred.

But with honesty.

The kind he couldn’t spin.

“And when Lucavion stepped in… he didn’t harm them. He simply refused to yield. It was they who lost control. Who struck first. Who were seen.”

Her eyes flicked across the hall. Over Elric. Over Brienna. Over the ones who had tried to paint Lucavion as the villain.

“You all speak of honor. Of civility. But none of you were there.”

Then—

Silence.

Weighty. Real.

Until—

Lucavion smiled.

That slow, unhurried, razor-line smile that never tried to dazzle—only to cut.

’You made the right choice indeed.’

He lifted his glass—not in gloat. Not in victory.

But in acknowledgment.

To her.

To the lone rose that had bloomed not in sunlight… but in fire.

And inside, Lucavion allowed himself the smallest exhale.

To be frank… that was a gamble. Even for him.

But—

One could say…

It paid off.

*****

The silence remained, brittle as ice.

And into it, Priscilla stepped further.

Not hurriedly.

With purpose.

Her voice, now calmer—softer than before—nevertheless carried through the vaulted chamber like silk dragged over glass.

“After that day… I said nothing,” she said. “Not because I doubted what I saw. But because I doubted whether truth still mattered in places like this.”

She turned now to the Academy officials, to the nobles whose lips had tightened with the beginnings of protest.

“But if tonight, we are to measure truth not by influence, but by witness—then allow me to be that witness.”

A hush passed again.

Then—

Another figure rose.

A lean man in a weather-stained coat, standing at the edge of the banquet like a shadow too stubborn to vanish. The attendant from the terrace—one of the few who had stood back but watched everything.

He stepped forward slowly.

“I was there too,” he said, his voice roughened by age but clear. “I saw the confrontation. I saw the boy step in. I saw the heir of Crane strike first.”

He nodded once toward Priscilla, then to Lucavion.

“What they say is true.”

Gasps broke like dropped glass.

Someone at the Vaumont table whispered a curse. Brienna turned pale. Even Cassiar’s smug air cracked just enough to betray a sliver of discomfort.

Lucavion tilted his head, one eyebrow raised—not smug, not arrogant.

Just patient.

And then he turned.

To Reynard.

Smile soft. Dangerous in its elegance.

“Now, Reynard,” Lucavion said, his tone light, each word carved from measured clarity. “Just like then… we will not speak over the authority of the Crown, will we?”

He let the words hang.

A string with noose at the end.

Then, just as softly—

“Or…”

He stepped closer, the space between them humming with implication.

“…do we question the authority of the royal family itself?”

Reynard’s expression didn’t break—but the tightness in his jaw betrayed him.

The room waited.

Lucavion didn’t press. Didn’t need to. He stood with the weight of testimony and truth at his back.

The game was already over.

Reynard could deny.

But to deny her now—Priscilla Lysandra, daughter of the throne—was to accuse royalty of fabrication.

To challenge her word was to challenge the blood of the Empire.

And even Reynard Crane… wasn’t that stupid.

Lucavion’s voice fell to a murmur, just for Reynard.

“But do speak clearly, dear Crane. The nobles would love to hear your answer.”