The Great Hall of the Imperial Palace was filled to bursting. Light streamed through the stained glass windows, casting fractured hues upon the stone floor. Every noble house of worth had gathered, dressed in their richest silks and gleaming metals, whispering in tight knots as the guards ushered in the day's spectacle.
At the far end of the hall, seated atop the gilded dais, was Emperor Valien—a stern man with sharp eyes that had seen too many betrayals to be surprised by another. On either side of him were the princes and princesses of the realm: Rythe stood silently beside the throne, his war-touched presence radiating command. His elder siblings watched with veiled judgment, younger ones with curiosity.
On the lower tier of the dais, Aurean's family stood as a unified wall of ice. Aurean's father, wore the same expression he had the day Aurean was sentenced: unflinching, untouched by grief. His wife was no warmer, gaze fixed on nothing in particular, as if Aurean's presence sullied the air around them. His older siblings, refused to look at him.
When Aurean was brought forward, barefoot and collared, silence fell. He walked with measured steps, eyes on the floor, though his posture refused to be broken. His presence stirred unease—he was a ghost of privilege turned prisoner, a fallen noble made spectacle.
Lord Halric stepped forward when summoned, voice clipped and cold.
"He was not sent with our sanction," he declared. "My son—former son—acted alone. He sought to kill Prince Rythe in a misguided attempt at relevance. We grieve the shame he has brought to our name, and formally strip him of all family ties, lands, and titles."
He turned to Rythe with a bow. "He is no longer ours to account for."
The emperor nodded once. "And the evidence?"
Scrolls were brought forth. Signed documents, coded letters allegedly penned by Aurean, and testimony from family staff carefully tailored to suggest instability and unprovoked malice.
Rythe said nothing throughout. He only watched Aurean, and watched harder as the boy stood motionless.
Not a single flicker of pain crossed Aurean's face.
The nobles murmured. Some looked on with glee—another rival disgraced. Others whispered of the absurdity of such betrayal from one so young. Only the war hounds, leashed and stationed at the rear, shifted uneasily.
The Emperor raised his hand, silencing the room.
"This matter stands closed. The traitor remains in Rythe's charge—his punishment is at the prince's discretion."
And with that, Aurean was dismissed without a glance from the family who once called him heir.
As he was led out, Rythe remained behind, hands clasped, jaw tight.
He had seen broken men. But this…
This was something else.
The cell was colder than usual.
Aurean sat on the straw-padded corner, legs drawn to his chest, collar heavy against his throat. His wrists bore faint red lines from the ceremonial chains, though the true wounds lay beneath his skin.
The judgment echoed in his ears, not in the words spoken aloud, but in the silence that followed. The silence of his siblings, the disgust that dripped from his father's voice. The way his mother turned her face. The quick, embarrassed glance from a cousin he'd once nursed a falcon with.
He thought the worst had passed when the mission failed. He thought the worst had passed when they chained him in the courtyard. But this—this quiet disavowal, this stripping of name and self before a hundred watching eyes—was something no blade could rival.
And still, he had not cried.
Not when the guards dragged him away. Not when the collar burned from the weight of the Emperor's sentence. Not even when he was locked again in the holding pen while the nobles celebrated his erasure.
Instead, he breathed.
Measured. Controlled.
He let the anger come. Not rage—no. It was quieter than that. Cold and coiling, like frost forming beneath skin.
You are not theirs anymore, he reminded himself.
The memory came unbidden. The last time he stood before his father, the night before the assassination.
"You were born to serve the bloodline," Halric had said, handing him the sealed directive. "Prove you are worthy of even that."
Aurean had accepted it with shaking fingers, desperate for approval. A final chance to matter.
Now, that same man had severed him with a single sentence.
Footsteps broke the silence. A soft shuffle. One of the younger hounds—a scruffy gray female—had snuck to the barred window of the kennel gate, pressing her nose into the gap to sniff at him.
Aurean lowered his head until their foreheads touched, steel on fur.
He whispered without sound, without breath.
"I am not gone."
The hound wagged her tail.
The evening air outside the kennels was heavy with the scent of storm and iron. Rain had not yet come, but the tension of it pressed against the sky—like a howl building in the throat of the wind.
Inside the training enclosure, the war hounds grew restless.
It began with low whining from Mael, the black-jawed sentinel of the pack. He prowled the perimeter, hackles half-raised, tail flicking in agitation. One by one, the other hounds stirred. Bristle, the largest of them, growled low and steady, pacing without command. Even the younger pups—usually too distracted to care—sat alert, eyes fixed on the kennel that held Aurean.
The hound trainer, Master Dael, paused mid-task, watching the unease ripple through his charges.
"Something's off," he muttered, frowning toward the northern stalls.
In his cell, Aurean had barely moved. Still pressed into the straw-strewn corner, still staring at the dark ceiling as the heat of rejection sank deeper into marrow. But though he made no sound, the bond between him and the hounds hummed. An invisible frequency carried by instinct, grief, and the unspoken language of beasts.
The storm came softly at first—wind whispering through the outer rafters of the war kennel, dusk crawling in with slow-burning gray. Inside, the torchlight flickered, and the hounds began to stir.
It started with Fen, the oldest of the pack. He lifted his head from the stone floor and let out a quiet whine, ears twitching. His golden eyes turned toward the back of the kennel where Aurean lay silent, curled into himself.
Moments later, Bristle rose next, then Harrow, then the rest. The great beasts moved not in chaos, but with purpose—gathering near Aurean's stall, pressing against the gate, their low, rhythmic growls vibrating in harmony. Not threatening. Not restless.
Mourning.
The young omega didn't move, but his breathing changed—just enough for Mael to notice. The alpha hound let out a chuff and lowered himself to the straw-covered floor near the gate, tail sweeping gently.
They could smell it on him: sorrow, suffocating and slow. Not the sharp scent of fear or desperation, but the quiet loss of something foundational.
The trainer, Dael, was in the adjoining chamber when the first low chorus began.
He paused, hand tightening around the gate lever.
"They're… singing," he murmured.
When he stepped into the enclosure, the sight halted him. Eleven hounds had circled Aurean's cell. A few whined softly. A few lay against the metal bars like they could warm him through it.
Dael approached cautiously.
"Aurean?" he asked.
No answer.
But the boy's fingers moved, brushing against the bars. Harrow nudged his knuckle gently.
"They're not just sensing him," Dael whispered. "They're claiming him."
Just then, Rythe arrived—drawn by the sudden shift in the hounds' behavior, his guard trailing behind. He didn't speak as he approached, but the moment he entered, Fen's head lifted. Not in challenge.
In acknowledgment.
"They've never done this for anyone," Dael said. "Not even you, Highness."
Rythe stepped closer to the bars of Aurean's cell. He looked down at the curled form, the bruised silence, the soft breath syncing with the beasts outside.
"A hound only bonds this way once," Dael added, voice quiet.
Rythe's eyes narrowed slightly. "And he hasn't even given them a command."
"No. But he's given them something more."
The war prince stood in silence, watching the fallen heir surrounded by beasts bred for war and blood—but who now guarded him like a den of siblings.
He turned and left without a word, the weight of realization pressed cold against his spine.