There was a murmur.
Not loud. Not unruly.
Just a soft ripple—like wind passing through silk—as the Lorian delegation absorbed Thalor's words.
The students shifted, almost in unison, as if some unspoken instinct had swept through them. Their gazes turned toward Lucavion—measured, curious, now edged with something sharper.
Interest.
Not disdain. Not mockery. But the kind of interest that came from recognition.
Recognition of someone dangerous.
Of someone real.
The one who had parried the Empire's sword to a draw.
And yet...
He was still being treated as second.
Lucavion felt it—the shift. Not in words, but in eyes. The way the Lorian students' postures remained poised, yet a few tilted their heads. The faint narrowing of pupils. The glint of calculation from one girl in gold-threaded sleeves. The boy near her, with the long scar running beneath his collarbone, gave a near-invisible nod—half to himself, half to what he'd just understood.
