The next day,

Aria

The sun hadn’t even broken the horizon when I stepped onto the training grounds, the bitter morning air biting at the dampness of my skin.

My snowflake mark was a cold, steady hum beneath my tunic, a phantom weight that reminded me of the pain I survived just hours before.

Ao Xuan was already there, a silent statue in the gray light. Beside him stood the nameless golden brown-eyed boy, his torso wrapped in crude linen bandages, his jaw set in a line of pure iron.

Behind them, five hundred Omegas and former slaves stood in ragged formation, their breaths blooming like white ghosts in the...