Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 821: My man

The banquet had all the trappings of grace—crystal glasses catching chandelier light, symphonies drifting through charmed instruments, nobles smiling with teeth that hid daggers—but Jesse could feel it beneath it all.

Tension.

It hung like a storm just above the silver-polished plates. Not loud. Not spoken. But palpable.

And it started before the first toast.

The seating arrangements had been subtle—just a few inches lower, a few degrees off-center. The Lorian envoy was not seated at the same tier as the native nobles. They were not placed as guests of honor. They were not even included in the central rings of authority.

They were sidelined.

Deliberately.

And every single one of them knew it.

Adrian Vale’s jaw had not relaxed once since they were seated. His fingers remained folded with too much force on the table, the tension creeping down his arms like steel cords beneath the fabric of his ceremonial coat.

Isolde, seated beside him, smiled.

Not softly. Not kindly.

Strategically.

And when the murmurs began—those artfully disguised barbs, the accidental omissions of titles, the waitstaff “confused” about which wine was appropriate for “foreign guests”—Adrian leaned in slightly.

He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t curse.

But Jesse caught the words anyway.

“They want us to crawl?”

His tone was quiet, low, and sharp.

Isolde’s response was gentle. Delicate, like her fingers trailing across the rim of her untouched wine glass.

“They want us to bend first.”

Adrian looked at her. Not with tenderness—but with calculation.

“And if we don’t?”

“Then they’ll flinch first,” Isolde said, her lavender eyes never losing that composed stillness. “Let them. If they disrespect us, let them do it in full view of the court. And let the ones watching decide who came to beg.”

Adrian didn’t reply. But the silence was agreement enough.

And so, they stayed.

The Lorian students remained in place. Regal. Perfect. Untouched.

Unmoving.

No one from their side crossed the hall.

And to Jesse?

It was unbearable.

Her hands itched. Her boots twitched beneath the tablecloth. Her eyes—sharp as blades, still locked on Lucavion at the far end of the banquet—burned with the fury of restraint.

She wasn’t someone who cared about noble pride. Not really. Not like Adrian or Isolde. She didn’t care about courtly standoffs or political theatre.

She wanted to move.

She wanted to go to him.

But they were under order.

No one broke ranks.

Not now.

So she sat. Perfect posture, as trained. Her face unreadable, as expected.

But her mind?

Her mind was screaming.

Because he was there.

He was right there.

And she couldn’t move.

Couldn’t approach.

Couldn’t even call his name without shattering the delicate cold war that was being played between the two Empires’ students.

And Jesse—Jesse had never hated ceremony more in her entire life.

Her fork pressed too hard into the edge of her plate.

The wine burned too bitter down her throat.

And every glance across the table at Adrian’s rigid expression, or Isolde’s calm smile, made her want to throw decorum out the goddamned window.

Because she didn’t care who came to beg.

She didn’t want to wait until they decided the moment.

She wanted to go to him now.

To look him in the eye and ask the questions that had been caged in her for years.

But she couldn’t.

Not yet.

So she swallowed the storm building in her chest.

And sat there in silence.

Watching.

Waiting.

Counting down the seconds until someone gave her a reason—any reason—to stand.

Yet, she couldn’t expect that the banquet would change quickly.

On the Lorian side, the tension hadn’t eased.

Not even after the flutes played their final notes. Not after the third course was cleared or the nobles’ laughter grew a shade too loud, too performative.

Jesse hadn’t moved.

Not a hair.

Not a breath she didn’t measure first.

Her gaze—still locked on Lucavion—sharpened when a noble from Arcanis Empire approached him with that polished arrogance he always wore like a borrowed title.

And Lucavion?

He didn’t blink.

Didn’t flinch.

He smiled.

In a way she remembered that smile.

The one she remembered from the barracks, from the bloodied tents when her morale was ash and hope had teeth. That crooked, irreverent smirk he wore when telling her that yes, their commanding officer was a bastard, but no, that didn’t mean they had to follow his orders like fools. That grin that had made even her want to believe—just for a second—that everything could still be turned on its head.

And now?

That same boy sat unmoving as nobility itself tried to pin him to the marble floor. As accusations sharpened around him like knives and the very weight of imperial hierarchy bore down with all its centuries.

He smirked anyway.

He raised his glass with the leisure of someone reading poetry.

And then—he opened his mouth.

And Jesse remembered why she’d once been afraid of him.

Not because of his strength.

But because of what he did with it.

Lucavion didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t shout. He dissected them.

One word at a time.

Her fingers clenched in her lap as he exposed the truth, not as a rebel, but as a craftsman. Calm. Collected. Unapologetic.

’He didn’t change,’ she thought. ’Not where it matters.’

And as Reynard faltered—visibly, devastatingly—Jesse didn’t feel triumph.

She felt that same slow-blooming ache that had haunted her since he’d left.

Because gods, he still moved like he was untouched.

Still stood as if the system was beneath analysis, not allegiance.

And then—

The Crown Prince entered.

Like a shadow dragged in on velvet.

The air changed. The hall remembered its place.

But Lucavion?

Lucavion applauded him.

With the same smile Jesse had seen him wear right after detonating an enemy supply line. With the same irreverence he’d used to mock military bureaucracy and win the hearts of a dozen hardened soldiers.

He clapped. He praised him.

Mockery wrapped in charm. Heresy laced with theater.

And Jesse nearly stood.

Her boots scuffed the floor.

Because she could see it—every step, every word—Lucavion was dragging royalty into his rhythm.

And then he said it.

“Dear Lucien.”

No title. No reverence.

Just name.

And Jesse exhaled sharply through her nose, fists tightening beneath the tablecloth.

Because she knew what came next.

Lucavion never dropped the blade unless he knew it would land.

And gods help them—

He had witnesses.

A recording.

A godsforsaken projection of the entire event.

Proof.

Jesse didn’t even hear the crowd’s gasps.

Didn’t register the shifting nobles, the sputtering outrage, the weight of history trembling on its knees.

She saw him.

Smiling.

Calm.

Untouched.

And she remembered.

The boy who once carried her out of a collapsing tunnel with three cracked ribs and called it “a light jog.”

The man who once burned through protocol just to keep a promise to a dying scout.

The smirk was the same.

The sarcasm was the same.

And that fire—that unyielding defiance wrapped in elegance—

That was Lucavion.

And Jesse—

’That is my man…’