The banquet hummed like a well-fed engine, ether pulsing through chandeliers overhead, blue-white currents glimmering across the crystal as though the whole hall breathed. Laughter and cutlery rose and fell in practiced rhythm, nobles glittering in their silks and glass-threaded suits, every eye turned toward the imperial table.
Cecil sat at the long table, posture neat, hands folded against his lap where no one could see the tension in them. He had his father's face, the same sharp lines, silver eyes, the edges softened until half the court whispered that he looked carved from light instead of steel. A copy of Damian, they said, but with a fragility that invited danger.
Dominant omega, his secondary gender stamped across every look they cast at him. And to them, that made him something worse than prey, it made him a prize.
