The great hall had never felt so much like a battlefield with no weapons drawn.
Crystal chandeliers hung overhead like frozen constellations, throwing fractured light across the black-and-white marble floor in sharp, glittering shards.
Nobles filled the galleries and the lower floor in tiered ranks—wolf lords in velvet trimmed with silver chain, their mates glittering beside them in silks and moonstones, human servants and minor officials clustered at the edges like shadows clinging to the walls, afraid to step fully into the light.
The air was thick with perfume, incense, and the sharper, almost electric undercurrent of barely-leashed anticipation. Every eye...gold, amber, human brown, was fixed on the dais.
The triplets stood at the center of it.
Aeron in black velvet edged with frost-white fur, the ceremonial cloak of the eldest prince falling from his shoulders like a gathering storm cloud.
