Chapter 76: The Twilight Before The Crown (11)
A gentle tug on his arm broke Lucien from the storm in his head.
“Lucien?”
Vaelira’s voice was soft but firm, carefully pitched so it reached him without drawing attention. Her fingers were wrapped lightly around his sleeve, not gripping, not pulling, just enough to anchor him.
The fabric creased beneath her touch, a small, grounding sensation that cut through the noise inside his skull.
Her brows were furrowed now, the easy composure she usually wore set aside. Concern flickered openly in her eyes as she studied his face, taking in the tension he hadn’t realized he was projecting.
“What happened just now?” she asked quietly. “You looked like you were about to kill someone.”
Lucien blinked.
Once. Then again.
The room rushed back into focus as if he’d surfaced from deep water. He became aware of the music first, soft strings drifting through the hall, followed by the low murmur of conversation, laughter rising and falling in practiced rhythms.
Candlelight shimmered against polished surfaces, throwing warm gold across marble and silk alike.
His jaw ached.
Only then did he realize how tightly he’d been clenching it.
He forced his teeth apart, the tension easing fraction by fraction.
His fists, white-knuckled at his sides, slowly unfurled as sensation returned to his fingers.
Pins and needles flared briefly before fading, leaving behind an uncomfortable awareness of how close he’d come to losing himself entirely.
Lucien drew in a breath through his nose.
Slow.
Controlled.
He glanced around, confirming where he was, who was near, who wasn’t, and then looked back at Vaelira.
Her hand was still on his sleeve, steady and patient, as though she hadn’t moved an inch since she’d reached for him.
“I’m fine,” he said.
The words came out automatically, well-practiced and smooth. He even managed a smile, though it felt thin on his face, stretched into place rather than earned.
“Just… not feeling so well,” he added after a pause, voice quieter now.
“That’s all.”
Vaelira didn’t let go.
She searched his expression for a long second, eyes sharp enough to catch what his smile tried to hide.
She didn’t call him out, not yet, but her grip tightened just a little, a silent message that she wasn’t fooled.
And that she wasn’t going anywhere.
Vaelira didn’t believe him, but she didn’t push either.
Not yet.
“…Let’s get some air,” she said instead, slipping her arm around his gently, guiding them both toward the large double doors that led out of the ballroom.
They were halfway there when two attendant, young, dressed in pristine white with politely stiff smiles, stepped into their path.
“I’m terribly sorry,” one of them said with a practiced bow.
“But we ask that all guests remain in the ballroom until the event concludes. It will not be long.”
Vaelira’s brow arched.
“We just need a moment.”
“Of course, my lady,” the other attendant chimed in, bowing lower.
“You’re free to take a quieter seat within the hall if you so wish.”
The tone was pleasant, apologetic, even, but the meaning was clear.
‘You’re not allowed to leave.’
Vaelira opened her mouth, irritation flashing behind her eyes, but Lucien gently tugged her back by the hand.
“It’s not worth it,” he murmured, his voice low.
“Let’s just sit.”
She gave the attendants one last withering glance before reluctantly turning away.
The two of them made their way to a quiet corner of the ballroom, just far enough from the spotlight and the marble grandeur to feel removed, yet still under the invisible gaze of expectation.
They sat down, the music wrapping around them like velvet, slow, graceful, painfully romantic.
The couples were twirling now, taking their final laps under the moonlight pouring through the glass dome above.
A picturesque scene, so perfect it almost felt cruel.
Lucien leaned back, arms resting on his knees, eyes half-lidded as he tried to ground himself.
But it wasn’t the music that pulled at his focus. It was the center of the dance floor.
Leonardo.
Spinning effortlessly with a partner held close in his arms.
Lucien hadn’t even realized he was watching until his stomach twisted again.
The anger had passed, replaced by something else now, a cold, quiet pressure behind his ribs.
The girl dancing with Leonardo… she was beautiful, no doubt.
But it wasn’t just her poise or her grace that unsettled him.
It was that he knew her.
Or he almost knew her.
Her features were familiar, but just off enough to confuse his memory.
Her hair was pinned up differently, her posture more formal.
She carried herself like a heroine from a painted fairytale.
But it wasn’t until the final steps of the dance, the final bow as the music swelled and ended in a cascade of applause, that it struck him.
She raised her head.
Her eyes, shimmering under the moonlight, caught his.
And then she smiled and curtsied, thanking the crowd in a voice that carried just enough.
A voice he’d heard before, soft and calming, speaking to him while he lay half-conscious.
“…You did well. Just rest now…”
Lucien’s heart skipped a beat.
His breath caught in his throat.
The nurse.
The woman who had quietly tended to his wounds after the trial.
The one who had dabbed at his brow with cloth and whispered reassurances in a voice that cut through the pain.
Her face had been covered then.
Hidden behind a veil and cap.
But her eyes, those were unmistakable.
It was her.
The heroine.
He stared, frozen.
And in that moment, all the warmth of the ballroom, the light, the laughter, the perfume and politeness, melted away.
Replaced by a deep, hollow silence in his chest.
The nurse and the heroine were the same person.
And now, here she was… dancing in the moonlight with Leonardo, smiling like a dream.
***
Lucien’s eyes remained locked on her even as the applause faded into the background.
‘That’s her. It has to be her…’
But something was wrong.
Everything about her presence gnawed at the edge of his memories, not in a loud, obvious way, but in the quiet, uncanny dissonance of something familiar being just… off.
He leaned forward slightly, his elbows resting on his knees, eyes narrowed as if trying to bring the truth into focus by sheer will.
His thoughts spiraled inward, drawing him into the well of recollection that he rarely visited now, that other life.
The visual novel his sister had adored, the one they’d played together on summer nights with the windows cracked open, their cheap fan humming in the background.
He remembered the choices, the dialogue trees, the glittering overlays of scripted romance and consequence.
He remembered her.
The Heroine.
She was always depicted as soft-spoken, gentle to a fault, and a bit naive.
The typical shoujo archetype, pretty, pure, in need of protection but possessing an inner resolve that slowly bloomed over the course of the story.
Her magic was light-based, but it barely mattered in the narrative.
A few sparkles here, a healing touch there, more symbolism than substance.
She was never a healer in the literal sense.
And definitely not a nurse.
Lucien's brow furrowed.
In the game, the Heroine never once tended to the injured.
She didn’t sneak around aptitude trials helping wounded examinees.
She didn’t walk with confidence like this.
She didn’t command presence.
He hadn’t even recognized her when she stood beside Leonardo earlier, not until the dance revealed her eyes and voice in full.
If she hadn't spoken, he might’ve never pieced it together.
Her appearance was close, yes.
The hair color.
The way the light seemed to cling to her when she moved.
But even that was more polished now.
Her makeup was refined.
Her steps were calculated.
Her smile didn’t hold the airy innocence he remembered.
There had always been a certain fragility to her in the game.
A sense that she was floating along on someone else’s current.
Soft and delicate, like she could break if you spoke too loudly.
But the girl before him now?
She stood like she belonged at the center of everything.
No longer porcelain.
No longer untouchable.
There was purpose in her posture, confidence in her bow, and a strange, hollow calm behind her eyes that made Lucien’s skin crawl for reasons he couldn’t yet name.
It didn’t fit.
‘None of this fits.’
He clenched his fists again, more gently this time, grounding himself with the familiar scrape of callused knuckles against fine fabric.
‘Had the story already gone off-script?’
Was it because he was here?
Or had something else changed, something deeper?
The idea wormed into the back of his mind and settled there, heavy and unwelcome.
The version of the Heroine he knew, the one his sister had adored and rooted for, wasn’t this one.
This girl on the dance floor, smiling like a doll carved from moonlight… she was familiar, yes.
But she wasn’t the same.
And for the first time since arriving in this world, Lucien found his attention had fully shifted, not to Leonardo, not to survival or sabotage or subplots.
But to her.
