Chapter 7: The Chick Without Wings
The hall had grown heavy with the heat of bodies, the stench of venison, smoke, and spiced wine. Candlewax dripped in sluggish rivulets down tall sconces, each flame wavering as if the very air strained beneath the weight of unsaid words.
I sat at Father's side upon the dais, small hands folded neatly in my lap. Marta's training echoed in my posture: back straight, chin level, eyes forward but never staring. I was the youngest son of House Alistair. Every movement mattered. Every breath measured.
The nobles had eaten their fill, though none seemed satisfied. Now came the phase Father dreaded most when the food waned, but the masks slipped.
Daggers in Silk
Lord Carroway leaned lazily in his chair, serpent-cloak shimmering like scales in the firelight. He swirled his goblet, holding borrowed silver as though it were tin.
"Your hall has charm, Julian," he said smoothly, eyes sliding across cracked rafters, patched surcoats, and faded banners. "One might almost believe we've stepped into an older, simpler age. Ah, the virtues of tradition."
A murmur of laughter rippled, polite yet biting.
Father raised his goblet with steady grace. "Tradition is the foundation upon which greatness is built. Stone endures, Lord Carroway long after serpents shed their skins."
The laughter stilled, brittle in the silence. Carroway's smile faltered, then returned thin, practiced. The thrust had landed, but Father bled for each one of these small victories.
I studied him closely. The set of his jaw. The whiteness of his knuckles. Every word was a duel, and each cost him more than he could afford.
A Child's Cruelty
The sharpest strike did not come from a lord.
It came from his son.
The Carroway boy, no older than ten, leaned forward, voice pitched just loud enough to carry across the hall.
"Father, is it true the youngest Alistair hasn't awakened yet?"
The words cleaved the air. Goblets paused mid-lift. Servants froze. Conversations died half-spoken.
Lord Carroway's smirk twitched. He had not told his son to say it, but he would not stop him either.
"I heard," the boy pressed, lips curling, "that the falcon keeps a chick in its nest. A chick with no wings. Can such a bird ever fly?"
The hall erupted with a ripple of laughter, sharper for its restraint. Some nobles hid their smirks behind goblets. Others let the insult linger in their eyes. A few, more cautious, glanced to their lords before daring to chuckle.
My chest constricted, heat crawling up my neck. Lorien stiffened, fists trembling at his sides. Orion's gaze sharpened, cold and calculating. But neither spoke. To rise would be to admit the wound.
Father's voice broke the silence, calm but cutting. "Children speak boldly when they believe themselves shielded by their fathers. Yet the measure of a house is not in its boasting, but in what it endures."
He raised his cup. "To endurance."
Reluctantly, the hall echoed him. "To endurance." Thin smiles. Eyes fixed on me.
I bowed my head, hiding the burn in my cheeks. They thought me broken already. Yet inside, something hardened.
Whispers in the Shadows
The feast stumbled onward, but the air had shifted. Whispers spread soft as moth wings:
"Unawakened still, at seven?"
"Perhaps the Alistair blood runs thin."
"Without strength, loyalty is wasted on a falcon with broken wings."
They spoke as if I were deaf. As if my future had already been measured and found lacking.
I clenched my hands beneath the table until nails bit my palms. I gathered their words, etched them into memory. Each slight a tally. Each insult, a debt.
A Mother's Anchor
Through the storm of whispers, I felt a touch at my arm.
Mother.
Her perfume faint lavender, barely clinging to faded silk cut through the stench of venison and smoke. Her lips moved the barest fraction.
"Do not bow your head, Ren," she whispered. "They wish to see you break. Do not grant them that."
Her hand lingered a moment, then withdrew, her smile turned outward for the crowd. Her words were a lifeline. My chin lifted, only slightly, my breaths forced into steady rhythm.
The knot in my chest did not ease. But it no longer crushed me.
Brothers' Silence
Lorien seethed, his pride wounded, every muscle taut as if he might leap across the table. Only Father's presence restrained him.
Orion stirred his wine, silent, but his gaze never rested. He catalogued every reaction, every smirk, every whisper. His silence was sharper than Lorien's anger like a blade waiting for the right moment to strike.
The Circle Tightens
Emboldened by the boy's cruelty, minor nobles bared their teeth.
"Strength is the Empire's coin," one baron muttered into his cup. "Without it, a house is bankrupt."
Another, feigning sympathy, smirked. "Perhaps the boy's blessing will yet come. Fortune favors the patient, does it not?"
Their voices dripped with condescension, daggers wrapped in silk. They pretended at pity, but their eyes gleamed with satisfaction.
The Father's Burden
Father rose once more, speaking of loyalty, of duty, of the unbroken ties that bound vassals to their liege. His words rang with dignity, but I saw the cracks. The tightness of his jaw. The faint tremor in his hand.
Every insult aimed at me struck him as surely as an arrow. He bore them all, because he must. Because to falter would mean surrender.
Our dignity was his shield. And already it was splintering.
A Chick Without Wings
I remained silent. I could not answer. Not yet.
But within me, something shifted.
I was not awakened. I was not strong. But I was not powerless.
I gathered every word, every laugh, every glance. They thought me a chick without wings.
One day, they would look up. And see the falcon they had mocked soaring above them.
The Banquet's End
At last, the platters emptied, goblets drained. Nobles withdrew in clusters, laughter brittle, promises thin as cobwebs. My father bowed them out with unbroken courtesy. My mother smiled with moonlit serenity. My brothers were shadows, each in his own way.
And me? I followed, small and silent, yet heavier than I had ever been.
The hall lay empty, echoing with smoke, wine, and judgment.
The storm had not yet broken.
But its edge had already cut me.
And tomorrow, before the orb of Affinity, the blade would fall.
End of Chapter 7