Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 811: Thalor Draycott (2)

Priscilla.

Of all the outcomes Thalor might have predicted—of all the carefully laid expectations and patterns he used to navigate this godforsaken pit of snakes—this one wasn’t on the list.

Priscilla.

With him.

She hadn’t said it clear with words, of course. No dramatic proclamation. No hand placed gently on Lucavion’s sleeve. But she didn’t need to. The way she had stood beside him, chin raised, voice unshaken—that was more than enough.

She vouched for him.

She vouched for him.

Thalor’s gaze flicked from her to Lucavion again, and for a moment, it wasn’t boredom in his chest. It was heat.

Not quite rage.

Not yet.

But something brewing. Something old.

He remembered when they were younger. When people whispered about their engagement like it was fate spun in gold. He remembered standing at her side when it mattered, when everything was still pliable. Before titles. Before inheritance. Before she learned how to cut with silence.

He remembered a time when she couldn’t even look Lucien in the eye.

When pressure from the prince was enough to make her step back, fall in line, hide behind protocol. When Thalor—he—had taken those blows for her in circles. Had spoken her name like it meant something.

And yet—

She had never done this.

Not for him.

Not when it would’ve counted.

But for Lucavion?

She stood in front of the empire’s heir, bled truth into the air, and didn’t flinch.

She testified.

And it irked him.

Because Priscilla wasn’t bold by nature. She was strategic. Everything she did was with calculation tucked under her tongue like a blade. If she sided with someone, it was never spontaneous—it was intentional.

Which meant—

’She’s already chosen him.’

That realization crawled down Thalor’s spine like icewater.

He had just found something interesting—finally—and she was already there, wrapping it in her stained little ribbon of endorsement. Turning it from a mystery into a known quantity. Into something claimed.

How utterly, disgustingly typical of her.

He clenched his jaw, just slightly. Just enough to feel the familiar pressure in the hinge of it.

He had wanted Lucavion untouched. Unspoiled. A piece of curiosity unmarked by prior allegiances. But now, the puzzle already came with fingerprints. Her fingerprints.

And wasn’t that just perfect.

You had to put your hands on this too, didn’t you?

Even as Thalor’s smile remained fixed, princely and precise, his gaze narrowed by a fraction—just enough.

Lucavion.

That was the name now. The name behind the voice that silenced a ballroom and dragged Lucien off his pedestal. A name that didn’t belong in these circles, yet wore command like silk.

He should’ve been impressed.

Should’ve marked it down in that private ledger of worth he kept hidden behind charm and calculation.

And he had.

For a moment.

Until the bastard touched her.

Not physically. Not yet. But presence, proximity—it was enough.

Priscilla.

His Priscilla.

Even if she was a leftover. Even if he’d discarded her, or she’d slipped through his fingers—depending on who told the story.

That didn’t change the fact.

She was his.

She had been shaped in his orbit. Sharpened in his shadow. Everything refined about her—her restraint, her venom, her ambition—had bloomed in the soil of his name.

And this man—this Lucavion—dared to stand beside her like it was nothing?

Like he hadn’t just dipped his hands into something Thalor had once held.

’Minus one point.’

He didn’t care if Lucavion was powerful. That could be respected. But this?

This was disrespect.

Claiming something he hadn’t earned. Walking in like a ghost and making the world rearrange itself for him.

It was almost funny.

Almost.

But not quite.

Thalor’s fingers tapped once against the side of his glass. Just once. A twitch of thought. A flicker of restraint.

Because it was better to hear it from her. To make her say it. Make her admit whatever this was—this connection, this shift in loyalty, this betrayal.

So he turned to her.

Not hurried. Not forceful. Just a single step—measured, elegant, deliberate.

It has been a while since he had talked to her after all, though of course, her face when he saw her was not good. But then again, what she felt was pretty pointless to him after all.

“Who is that guy,” he said, voice velvet-lined, laced with the kind of familiarity that could suffocate.

His smile lingered, soft as snowfall. But beneath it? A question.

Not asked outright.

Just breathed into the space between them.

Why him?

But she didn’t answer. Correct content is on NovelFire

Didn’t look.

Didn’t even acknowledge him.

The silence wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t uncertain. It was… curated. Intentional.

As if she didn’t owe him words.

As if this—he—was beneath her concern.

Thalor blinked once, slow.

A quiet throb began to echo in his temple. Not from anger. Not quite.

From something older.

You dare.

It was the kind of silence a child might wield—rebellious, impudent, that brittle fantasy of autonomy. As if breaking away from him somehow made her whole.

She had been shaped in his name. Had found her sharpness only after he dulled the world around her. Everything she carried now—her spine, her poise, her venom—was carved from the roots of his legacy.

And she acted like he was a stranger.

A relic. free\NovelFire.c o(m)

An inconvenience.

No.

That wouldn’t do.

His fingers curled—slowly, subtly.

The spell didn’t require gesture. It didn’t need volume or runes. Just intention.

Not mana.

Intent.

That was what made it rare. What made it his.

A spell born from familiarity, from history. A tailored construct of perception magic, emotional resonance, psychological lockstep. One only a few in the entire Empire would even recognize.

The pressure slipped into the air.

Not with sound.

Not with shine.

With presence.

A tightening in the lungs. A subtle twist behind the eyes. Not pain. Not yet.

Just the promise of it.

And he watched her.

He watched as her fingers twitched, ever so slightly, around the glass. As her breath caught for half a second longer than it should have.

Good.

It was working.

Her composure hadn’t cracked—but the strain had begun.

And that was the point.

This wasn’t about humiliation.

Not yet.

This was a reminder.

A summoning.

You can play noble. You can wear your independence like a brooch. But we both know—I can make you speak any time I choose.

The words had barely left his mouth—*”Spreading your legs for a guy like that”—*when it happened.

A shift.

So small most would’ve missed it.

But not him.

Thalor felt it the moment his focus slipped. A blink too long, a breath too shallow. His concentration, so finely honed on Priscilla’s breathing, her pulse, the tremor behind her silence—fractured.

It wasn’t Priscilla who caused it.

It was the presence behind her.

Thalor hadn’t even heard him move.

But the spell—his spell, the one layered with careful precision and woven through layers of subtle intent—shuddered like glass struck by a chisel. Not shattered. Not yet.

But compromised.

He felt it in the base of his spine—a sudden hollowness. A slackening. His mana didn’t unravel so much as slip, like silk tugged from a loose knot.

No—

Then came the touch.

Not a blow. Not a shove.

Just pressure.

Real. Cold. Exact.

And the voice.

“Ahem, my bad. My hand slipped.”

It wasn’t the words. It wasn’t even the tone—light, pleasant, unassuming.

It was the timing.

Thalor’s knees nearly buckled.

The world tilted.

His balance—gone.

Just for a moment.

But it was enough.

The spell broke.

Cleanly. Invisibly.

Like it had never been there at all.

Air returned to the space between them. His connection to Priscilla—severed.

And in its place?

Lucavion.

Standing there like he belonged. Like the world hadn’t just shifted to accommodate him. One hand at his side, the other behind his back—like this was all some idle game.

Like he hadn’t just interfered.

Thalor inhaled.

Steadied.

But he felt it. The ripple in his circuits. The recoil of a spell undone not by force—but by exact disruption.

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