FLASHBACK 1.1
It was a quiet evening and the air was soft and still beyond the palace walls yet within his chamber, Rowan moved as though he were on a battlefield. His sword cut through the air in practiced arcs, each swing sharper, faster and heavier as if the steel itself carried the weight of all his unspoken anger.
Here, in the solitude of his room, he was not the omega prince locked away by his bloodline but was simply a warrior—alive, free and unchained.
"I wish I could also spar with others especially brother, or His Grace Magnus, will do." He murmured to himself until the unfortunate memory lingered on his mind.
For twenty-three years, life in Vlandia had offered him little joy and no place to truly breathe. Only the sword had ever given him that fleeting sense of purpose, that rush of life through his veins. He had once dreamed of standing proudly beside his elder brother, Rhydan, at the head of the kingdom's forces but at sixteen, fate had dealt him its cruelest hand.
His body betrayed him, manifesting not as the alpha he had trained to be but as an omega.
That very single revelation had shattered everything he had dreamed of, that his father's decree followed swiftly:
Rowan was forbidden from ever laying his hand on a sword again.
He had tried to fight it. Tried to reason and tried to prove that he was still capable enough but his mind had been unstable then, his emotions volatile and his very existence was branded as flawed. Ravik Montclair, the great alpha king, who had prided himself on a lineage of unbroken alphas looked upon his second son with nothing but disappointment.
And so, the years stretched into silence where once he had been a son, Rowan became little more than a shadow in his father's halls—unworthy of attention and undeserving of pride.
Yet even now, alone with steel in his hands, he refused to yield. The blade whistled through the air again, fierce and unrelenting as if to remind him that he was still here and that he would not break.
Well, easy said than done.
For years, Rowan had never been given the chance to prove himself. Every effort, every training session and every attempt to stand tall had been brushed aside as though his worth had already been decided long before he had the chance to show it.
His father ignored him, and even his elder brother once his closest companion discarded him as nothing but an embarrassment.
Rhydan, two years his senior had manifested as an alpha at the extraordinary age of seven. From that moment onward, the household's expectations for Rowan grew heavier by the year. If the elder was a prodigy, then surely the younger would follow and Rowan had believed—no, he had prayed that he could carry that expectation.
But at sixteen, his entire world crumbled.
He remembered the scene as if it were branded into his bones while the physician's words still echoed in his ears, unrelenting and merciless.
"My apologies, Your Highness but you are unfortunately an omega, not an alpha. Considering the symptoms you've displayed and your unusual pheromone scent, it is undeniable. You are, in fact, an omega. I'm very sorry, Your Highness."
It hadn't just been said to him in private. No, his humiliation had been unveiled in front of the entire imperial family, with relatives and nobles standing as witnesses. Every gaze turned to him in that chamber that some filled with shock and others with disdain, too many with poorly concealed amusement.
"Father, I—"
"Silence!" Ravik's voice thundered through the chamber as he rose sharply from his throne while shaking in anger. "How dare you manifest as an omega when every generation of my bloodline has been alpha?"
The whispers began almost instantly that each one of it was cutting like a knife between Rowan's ribs, while his tear-brimmed eyes now darted helplessly across the faces of those people around him.
And to make it worse, it had been His Majesty's birthday banquet. What should have been a night of celebration became a spectacle of shame. Rowan had ruined it—at least, that was how his father saw it. Ravik Montclair's face had darkened, and his fury was palpable, even his pride was wounded beyond measure.
To him, it was not fate's cruelty that had betrayed Rowan but it was Rowan himself who had betrayed his bloodline.
That day was the beginning of everything.
The privileges that once belonged to him were stripped away. His father's eyes no longer lingered on him except in cold disappointment and even Rhydan, who once sparred and laughed with him, began treating him as if he were something fragile and foul.
To them, his existence as an omega was a blemish on the Montclair name, one they would never allow him to forget.
And so, years later, Rowan remained cornered in his room, the only place where he could lift his sword and the only place where he could breathe without ridicule. Every swing of his blade was not only defiance but a life and survival.
He longed to breathe, to feel alive and the only thing that could give him that was achieving the swordsmanship he had dreamed of since childhood.
One evening, as dinner was being served in his chamber, Rowan overheard a servant whisper that the Evadene Kingdom was seeking new knights and that even betas could claim the rank. He had been eighteen then and that single spark of hope had taken root in his mind like a stubborn flame for years.
"If I stay here, I'll never be able to wield a sword again and just rot within these walls. I need to escape."
For five long years, he clung to that resolve and quietly plotting his way out yet every attempt ended in failure. Rhydan always discovered him and always tightened the chains around his freedom until his movements were watched more closely than ever.
Soon, Rowan was forbidden from leaving the palace unless accompanied by a knight and it was always one of Rhydan's men, stationed like a shadow at his heels.
But then, on a night when hope had nearly withered away, an unexpected ally stepped forward. Magnus Duskbane, heir to the ancient house and now its lord, an alpha who had quietly harbored feelings for Rowan even before his manifestation, came to him. He had seen Rowan's struggle, understood his suffocation and in that moment offered what no one else would
—help.