"You're probably right about that."
The sentence landed with no preamble, no flourish. It didn't ask for forgiveness. Didn't ask for contradiction. It just sat there, a single shard of truth lying naked between them.
And for a beat, Elara stilled.
Because it hadn't sounded like self-pity.
It hadn't sounded like guilt either.
Just… a fact. As simple as the mist curling around their ankles or the weight of silence in old halls.
Her breath caught, just slightly.
Because that—that—wasn't the Lucavion Thorne she remembered.
That pause.
That flicker behind his lashes, the slow falter of his lips—that was the closest she'd seen him to slipping. To stepping beyond the careful mask of arrogance and calculation. Not shedding it, no, never that. But… thinning the veil.
And the way he looked upward—toward nothing, not even the stars—felt too quiet to be an act.
