What came after the procession moved slowly.
Not hesitating, not confused. Slow on purpose.
Like a long dinner where everyone knows the main course is already breathing.
An elder stepped forward. The Master of Ceremonies.
His voice sounded old in a way that had nothing to do with age, like it had learned to speak in places where sound shouldn't survive.
He unfolded a parchment and called the first name.
Eron, of the Cliff Clan.
Eron rose with a sound halfway between a grunt and a sigh.
Broad shoulders. Hair gone gray and cut short, practical, as if softness had never been useful to him.
He descended the three steps from the dais and walked the length of the Omega line.
His nose flared, subtle but unmistakable.
He did not touch. He did not speak.
He passed each girl slowly, breathing in, eyes measuring without apology.
Not desire. Inventory.
He stopped in front of the red-haired girl. Livia.
One small tilt of the head.
"This," he said.
The word landed heavy.
For a moment, Livia didn't move.
Her eyes went wide, as if the room had suddenly lost gravity.
A Beta monitor appeared at her side and took her arm, firm, practiced.
Guided her away from the line, toward the space near the dais where the chosen were beginning to collect.
Relief flooded Livia's face so violently it looked like pain.
She had been selected. Defined. Claimed.
Polite applause followed. Hands meeting hands, hollow, restrained.
Another name was called.
The rhythm settled in.
A name. A man standing. Footsteps cutting through silence.
The pause. The decision.
Sometimes a word. Sometimes a gesture.
Each choice snapped a future into place.
Some girls cried when chosen.
Some went very still, shock turning them rigid.
One girl, chosen by an Alpha barely older than the Academy walls, collapsed outright.
She hit the carpet hard. A few people laughed. It didn't last long.
Lyra stayed where she was.
Her breathing had gone thin enough that the edges of the room flickered with color.
She fixed her gaze on the back of a Beta servant pouring wine ahead of her, on the line where cloth met spine, as if staring hard enough might let her disappear into the stone wall behind her.
Every selection that wasn't hers came with relief sharp enough to hurt.
The line grew shorter.
The chosen gathered closer together.
The air thickened, heavy with triumph and something sour beneath it.
She began to notice patterns.
Older Alphas went for solidity. Strength that promised endurance.
Younger ones sometimes reached for delicacy, for clever eyes that dulled under prolonged attention.
When Rokan's name was called, he took his time.
He walked past Elara, close enough that Lyra could feel the shift beside her.
His pale eyes lingered on Elara's face, the white streak in her hair, the tension in her jaw.
"Too much pride," he said lightly. "That one would take work."
He continued on and chose a small girl near the end of the line, trembling so badly it looked like she might fall apart.
Elara flushed, anger and humiliation colliding in her expression.
To be considered, then passed over, cut deeper than being ignored outright.
Sion did not move.
He remained seated at the center of the dais, watching.
Not bored. Not distracted.
Distant in a way that suggested calculation rather than indifference.
He didn't lean forward. Didn't scent the air.
His wine cup stayed untouched in his hand.
His gray eyes traced the remaining Omegas, stopping on Lyra in brief intervals that felt precise, deliberate.
Then sliding past her again.
A thought, dangerous and small, took shape in Lyra's chest.
Maybe he wanted nothing.
Maybe she truly was too ordinary, too thoroughly unremarkable, for even the Black Moon heir to find use in her.
Maybe she would be left among the unchosen.
Service work. Obscurity. Humiliation, yes, but survivable. Quiet.
The botany book in her drawer. Kael's promise of more volumes.
A life narrow enough to breathe in.
The line shrank.
Eight.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
Another Alpha stood. Lyra found herself among the last four.
The leftovers.
Too thin. Too tall. Marked.
Girls who smelled like fear that never paused long enough to fade.
She had joined them. The plain one. The one that slipped through notice.
Then the Master of Ceremonies hesitated.
He adjusted the parchment.
A murmur rippled through the hall. The main selections were ending.
"For the next presentation," he said, voice rough, "a candidate of unaligned provenance. Lyra. Of No Clan."
The silence that followed was different.
Not anticipation. Meaning pressed into it.
No Clan. The worst label. Unknown blood. A seed without soil.
A low sound moved through the hall, like something small and alive shifting beneath leaves.
A few Alphas exchanged glances. Rokan leaned back, satisfaction bright in his eyes.
Lyra felt her balance slip.
Her ears filled with blood. The words struck physically.
Unaligned.
She stepped forward because her body knew the motion by heart.
Her gaze dropped to the marble beneath her feet.
Black. White. Veins running through stone. Dust in the seams.
The world narrowed to pattern and surface.
No Alpha rose.
The silence stretched. Watched. Judged. Discarded.
She felt the pity from the other unchosen girls beside her.
It burned worse than contempt.
She felt the room settle into agreement. Confirmation.
Waste. No Clan.
The Master of Ceremonies cleared his throat.
Then a chair moved.
Heavy wood scraping stone.
Not loud. In the silence, it split cleanly.
Lyra didn't lift her head. She couldn't.
But she felt the shift. Air changing direction.
Attention pulling away from her like a current reversing, gathering behind her on the dais.
Then the voice.
She had heard echoes of it before. Never like this.
It was familiar in the way fear is familiar.
Low. Controlled. Not raised. Sharp enough to cut without effort.
"She is mine."
Three words.
The room broke around them.
Breath left the hall all at once. A glass shattered somewhere.
The sound felt absurdly small.
Lyra lifted her head slowly. Her neck protested, stiff and aching.
Sion stood.
He hadn't just risen. He was already upright, his presence compressing the space around him.
His hands were empty. The blue firelight curved away from his face, failing to settle in his eyes.
His eyes were no longer gray.
They burned with a pale gold, warm and wrong, like something ancient pulled into the present.
They were fixed on her. Not searching. Certain.
He hadn't walked to her. Hadn't performed the ritual.
He had stated a fact.
Rokan leaned forward, disbelief naked on his face.
The Master of Ceremonies opened his mouth and closed it again.
Sion did not look away.
There was no hunger in his gaze. No triumph. No pleasure.
There was recognition. Something aligned. A debt acknowledged.
He saw her. And that seeing was enough.
Lyra's hope didn't fade. It collapsed.
Whatever quiet future she'd imagined burned away.
The book. The promises. All of it gone.
Only the gold light remained, pinning her in place, and the echo of the words reshaping the world around her.
She is mine.
Deep beneath the terror, something older shifted.
Not relief. Not gratitude.
The sound of a mechanism engaging. A lock turning.
A cage closing around her that she hadn't known she was already inside.
And with the click came a single thought, clean and unmistakable, rising from somewhere that was not hers:
Finally.