Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

"If you can understand how not to antagonize Lucien Lysandra with that brain of yours—one that only wakes up for circuits and glyphwork—then surely, I can manage the same."

The words were smooth.

But they landed like acid.

Thalor's jaw clenched—barely. His fingers curled tighter around the glass. That line… that line, Cassiar knew would sting.

Because Thalor was many things—genius, strategist, architect of mana infrastructure—but Cassiar's insult wasn't about intelligence.

It was about value.

The implication that Thalor only thought in patterns. That he couldn't understand people the way Cassiar could. Couldn't bend them. Couldn't play them.

Not like a Vermillion.

And the worst part?

Thalor couldn't do anything.

Not to him.

Not with the Vermillion family sitting on half the Tower's research budget. Not when the Draycotts—his own bloodline—were still tied to the artifact labs through Vermillion funding.

Thalor didn't move for a second.

Just the slow, calculated swirl of wine in his glass. The curl of thought gathering like stormlight behind his eyes.

Cassiar Vermillion always danced too close to the fire—but he forgot sometimes that mages made the flames.

"You mistake clarity for limitation," Thalor said at last, voice smooth as ever, but now laced with a quiet venom. "My mind may stir for circuits and glyphwork—but yours only wakes for gold."

He stepped closer, glass still steady in his hand.

"Which is why you'll never build anything of your own. You'll only ever buy it. Lease it. Steal it when convenient. You trade in power like it's silk, but power doesn't admire you, Cassiar. It just tolerates you."

Cassiar didn't smile this time.

His lips flattened. Just slightly. But the temperature changed.

A flick of his fingers twisted the black cravat tighter, like a casual garrote.

"You say that like gold doesn't command more loyalty than blood these days," he murmured. "Remind me, Thalor—how many students you would've gotten into the Tower without my family's rune-paved donations?"

Thalor's stare sharpened.

Cassiar leaned in a breath closer.

"How many doors your name opens on its own—without Vermillion contracts behind them?"

The air between them tensed, polished civility stretched like a thread soaked in acid.

One more word—

"Gentlemen,"

Rowen's voice cut through the venom with casual precision—measured, unmistakable.

The two turned as he approached, his steps steady, composed. He wore no expression of irritation or concern—just the quiet knowing of a man who had heard enough to calculate the blade behind every word.

Rowen stopped beside them, glass in hand, eyes sharp with dry amusement.

"Are you bickering again?" he asked, lifting his drink with a lazy grace. "Honestly, it's like watching two wolves try to out-stare each other. Inefficient."

Cassiar gave an exaggerated sigh. "I simply came to offer congratulations. And our dear Thalor decided to return the gesture with… fire."

Thalor's lips twitched, but his tone remained level. "And Cassiar, as ever, came to the fire with oil."

Rowen took a slow sip of his drink—nonchalant, almost bored. But his eyes never left Thalor's.

"Fine," he said. "Then let's ask something worthwhile."

Thalor raised an eyebrow.

Rowen tilted his head slightly, voice still mild, but edged now with focus.

"Why did you do it?"

Thalor didn't answer immediately.

Rowen went on, gaze steady.

"This whole setup. The duel. The prompt. Calling Lucavion out first, giving him to me, then setting him against the Lorian girl… That wasn't just for balance. Not entirely. So…" A pause. Then, quieter: "Why?"

Thalor's glass hovered near his lips for a long breath.

Then, slowly, he lowered it.

"Does it matter?" he asked softly.

Rowen's response came without hesitation.

"Yes."

There was no accusation in his tone—only curiosity. And something else. A tension not between anger and suspicion, but between pride and pressure. Between what had been done… and what it meant.

Thalor gave a faint sigh.

Then, voice smooth as frost over stone, he replied:

"To see what Lucavion was really made of. And to see what you would do when faced with someone like him."

He met Rowen's gaze directly.

"And because pressure carves truth faster than praise ever could."

Cassiar chuckled under his breath. "Now there's the Thalor I know."

Rowen didn't speak at first.

But the look in his eyes—quiet, unreadable—lingered long.

Then, at last, he turned away, finishing the last of his drink with a low murmur.

Thalor watched the back of Rowen Drayke retreating form with the same expression he wore when studying an unsolved theorem—impassive on the surface, but lined with an intensity no wine nor ballroom light could veil.

The room moved again around them—laughter rebounding, string music swelling just enough to mask the weight of what had been said. But Thalor stood still.

Unmoving.

Calculating.

He didn't sip his wine. Didn't even twitch. Just held the glass aloft, an anchor for poise while the storm started behind his eyes.

Rowen.

Of all people.

'He noticed.'

Not just the shape of the stage, but the craft behind it. The seams. The angles.

He always notices.

And unlike Cassiar, Rowen's questions weren't meant to needle or provoke.

It wasn't fear.

Thalor Draycott didn't fear men like Rowen Drayke.

But there was something in his presence—something intolerably measured, disarmingly dry, quietly observant—that made it hard to breathe quite the same when he entered the room.

Not because he threatened.

But because he didn't have to.

Rowen didn't warn. He concluded.

And that made him incredibly difficult to deal with.

Thalor's fingers flexed once around the glass. Subtle. Controlled. Barely enough to shift the wine.

Because Rowen wasn't just some highborn observer with a sharp tongue and better posture than most.

He was the son of the Knight Commander Drayke.

The next in line to the Empire's most formidable blade—and the only man in the court who could speak with both imperial weight and military independence. He didn't inherit authority like the rest of them. He moved with it, bone-deep, earned and ingrained.

Rowen didn't posture.

He assessed. So$ur!ced! di@r%ect.l!y f@r#om M$V*6.L^E.MP6YR.

And that was what made him dangerous.

Because Thalor could play men like Cassiar Vermillion all day long—joust with wit, veil barbs in lace and silk. But Rowen?

Rowen didn't spar.

He listened.

He stood there in that unbothered way, drink in hand, half-smiling like none of it mattered—until suddenly, it did. Until the conversation had turned, and you didn't realize he'd been guiding it from the first sentence.

He noticed.

He always noticed.

Not just politics. Not just strategy.

Motive.

And unlike the others, Rowen didn't react to scandal. He didn't scurry to exploit it. He simply… filed it away. Like a swordsman judging your stance before the blade leaves the scabbard.

That was what worried Thalor.

Rowen's silence wasn't indecision. It was somehow the ability to sense things.

And if he was calculating now—if he'd seen the pattern behind the duel, the artifact, the rise of a provincial enigma like Lucavion—

Just as the music took on a new rise—soft flutes layered beneath murmured strings—Rowen Drayke's glass lowered from his lips with a quiet clink. The drink was gone, the edge in his gaze not.

He didn't speak immediately. Simply stood beside Thalor again, the air between them stretched taut with something unspoken.

"I didn't like him at first," Rowen said finally, his voice mild. "Lucavion. The way he walked in. That posture—" he made a vague, dismissive motion with his hand, "—like the room should already know his name."

Thalor gave a small nod, not interrupting. Just watching.

"I don't like pretense," Rowen continued. "Especially not from someone who hasn't bled for what they carry."

A pause.

Then:

"But he didn't flinch."

Rowen turned his head just slightly, eyes scanning the chandelier's reflection in his empty glass. Not sentimental. Just observant.

"In the ring. Under pressure. When I struck cleanly—he didn't falter. He adapted."

Thalor let the silence answer for him.

"And that artifact," Rowen added, quieter now, "wasn't borrowed. He knew it. Like a blade he'd been sharpening himself."

That drew a very subtle glance from Thalor. Not alarmed. Not quite pleased either.

Rowen sighed once through his nose. "Which means someone taught him. Or handed him something they shouldn't have."