Novel Full Chapter 950: It has to be her
Chapter 950: It has to be her
The word came back with a sting of memory: the sealed letter, the instruction not to pry but to watch, to lend aid when necessary, to treat the girl called Elowyn as though she belonged here even if the seams of her presence didn’t quite fit.
Selphine scoffed softly under her breath, the sound low enough to be mistaken for a sigh.
’Problematic indeed. And yet… somehow, amusing. She hides so much, but the moment he pushes, everything she’s built cracks wide open. It’s reckless. But strangely human, too.’
Her gaze sharpened again, tracing the faint tremor in Elara’s shoulders, the flush refusing to fade from her cheeks.
’She doesn’t even realize it, does she? That she gives herself away.’
But as Selphine watched, the shift began.
Elara’s breathing steadied. The tension in her jaw eased—not gone, but carefully reined in, like reins pulled tight on a spooked horse. Her cloak, still clutched around her, no longer looked like a shield but a garment once more. Her hands, fists a moment ago, uncurled inside her sleeves.
And when she lifted her head again, it was with the same calm, deliberate poise that had always marked her. The flush faded behind control, her gaze clear, steady.
Elara exhaled once, steady this time. Her cloak loosened slightly at her shoulders, her hands sliding back into her sleeves as though to erase the tremor they’d carried before. When she finally spoke, her voice was even—not sharp, not frantic.
“I’m tired,” she said simply. “And I need to recover my mana.”
The words landed with a quiet finality. They weren’t an excuse, nor an appeal—just fact, laid bare in her usual measured cadence. Yet beneath them, the truth was obvious.
She was empty.
Aurelian’s gaze flicked to the frost still etched across the stone, its glow fading to nothing. “That much is clear,” he murmured, half to himself.
Selphine’s arms stayed crossed, but her eyes narrowed in thought. ’So that’s it. Depleted.’ Her lips pressed faintly, almost invisible, before she tilted her chin ever so slightly. ’It would explain the outburst. Even among the Awakened, when the reservoir runs dry, the body keeps its balance but the mind… frays. Emotions sharpen. Words spill. A mask slips.’
Her eyes lingered on Elara’s face, cool and assessing. ’And she’s quick to wear hers again. Too quick. She knows what we saw, and she’s already trying to cover it.’
“Rest, then,” Selphine said aloud, her tone sharp but not unkind. “If you’ve bled your channels dry, no point in standing there like you’ll hold.”
Elara gave a small nod, neither defensive nor yielding. “Exactly.”
Aurelian’s expression softened—just a flicker, but enough. “You should have said so sooner,” he said. “No one expects perfection.”
Elara’s gaze darted to him, steady but unreadable. “Perfection wasn’t what I was aiming for.”
And with that, she turned slightly, adjusting her cloak as though preparing to walk.
Selphine’s lips twitched faintly at the edge. ’Elowyn. Problematic indeed…’
*****
Lucavion walked alone now—his boots silent against the stone paths winding back toward the dormitory halls. The morning air was cool, not from Elowyn’s spells anymore, but from the soft break of dawn itself brushing through the trees. The courtyard had been loud in its own way—clashes, breath, unspoken words—but here, the silence was thicker. Not peaceful. Not quite.
“Not bad…” he muttered to himself.
A dry exhale followed—not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. The words weren’t for her. Not fully. They were for the version of himself that hadn’t expected to be dragged into anything remotely resembling a duel before breakfast. Or smirking like an idiot halfway through it.
His morning hadn’t developed in a way he would’ve predicted at all.
He hadn’t even planned to be out there.
He hadn’t planned to be awake.
In truth, he hadn’t slept.
And he knew exactly why.
That scene had returned again. Unbidden. The one memory he always pretended was nothing. A shard of ash and steel buried deep in the folds of his mind—one he never asked to remember and yet could never quite forget. It came with the same rhythm every time—just when he let his guard down. Just when sleep should’ve offered rest, it offered that instead.
So—he trained. Or told himself he would.
He needed his mind quiet.
Quiet like fire. Not roaring.
Recently, he’d been refining his control over the Flame of Equinox. The core of his power—the very thing that made most enemies fold before they could swing twice—was also his biggest obstacle.
He could unleash it with terrifying ease. That wasn’t the problem.
Even shaping it into forms, crafting techniques with heat and precision? That came naturally enough with will.
But there was a fault beneath the flame. A gap.
The power responded to his intent. But not yet to his refinement.
His blade, his footwork, his strikes—they were all clean. Measured. Surgical when he needed them to be.
The fire?
It was still raw. Still a beast obeying a master, not a partner in the fight.
Even when he crafted spells into structured forms, they always leaned toward destruction. Wide bursts. High output. Powerful—but inelegant. And he hated inelegance. He hated waste.
That’s why he’d been working on control.
Not to make the flame weaker.
But to make it smarter.
Sharper.
Dexterous like his sword.
And yet, despite all the mental calculus, despite the countless replications of form and flame, that dawn had been… off.
Lucavion was supposed to be sharpening. Refining.
But this time?
His focus didn’t hold.
Not the way it should have.
Not that he cared that much about that anyway, but that was the case.
It was a mistake to train in that state. He knew that. He always knew that. But he did it anyway.
Until—
—he sensed it.
Not consciously, not immediately. It was subtle at first.
A shift in the wind.
A trace of mana.
A scent.
And then—
A jolt.
Unseen, unprompted—his body shuddered. Like something had clawed through his nerves and pulled them taut all at once. His hands trembled—briefly. So brief it should’ve been dismissed. But it wasn’t.
He froze mid-form. Mana wavered, lines of controlled flame snapping backward like coiled wires recoiling from his fingertips. His head throbbed—sharp, clean pain piercing through his temple before receding just as fast.
“What the—”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
He didn’t need to.
The scent had hit him fully now.
Not smoke. Not iron.
Tea.
Not just any blend. Not the floral nonsense nobles brewed for display.
That blend.
He didn’t know its name.
He didn’t need to.
His memory didn’t store names.
It stored scars.
His jaw clenched.
And that’s when he abandoned the training.
Left the field cold. The flames extinguished mid-formation. Not because he lost interest—but because something in that smell yanked at a thread he hadn’t touched in years.
He’d sensed a presence—a foreign thread of mana tangled into a place it had no right to be. And yet… not foreign at all.
It was her.
And when he reached the edge of the courtyard, found her there alone, brimming with mana and something else—
He didn’t feel surprised.
’Or should I say Elara?’
He hadn’t said the name aloud. But the thought rang clear as a blade in his skull.
By that point, he was almost sure.
The girl named Elowyn—
Her gait. Her casting pattern. That half-masked pain behind every word.
It had to be her.