The scene outside was a descent into the abyss.The camp was no longer a place of industry; it was a slaughterhouse.
Under the influence of the Prince's pheromones, the Omegas and Betas had been stripped of their docility, and the Alphas of their restraint. They were a tide of raw, unfettered rage.
Guards were being dragged from their towers and torn apart by hand. The air was filled with the metallic scent of blood and the roar of a thousand voices that had finally found their scream.
The 'vassals' were now beasts, and they were feeding.
Alistair's face went stone-cold. He felt the vibration of the violence in his own blood, but his mind remained that of a King who understood the difference between a revolution and a massacre. He looked at the carnage, then turned his stern, piercing gaze toward the Prince.
"Asarmose," Alistair's voice cut through the screaming like a blade. "Stop this."
Asarmose didn't look away from the fire and blood. His smile didn't falter. "Stop it? Alistair, I am only showing them the mirror. They were treated as animals; now they are behaving as such."
"This isn't a kingdom," Alistair growled, his grip tightening on Vane's bound form. "It's a riot of corpses. If you don't reel them in, there will be nothing left to rule. Stop this. Now."
Asarmose, realizing the mess he was causing, stopped smiling. He seized his pheromones, pulling the weight back into himself with a sharp, internal wrench. In response, his body felt impossibly heavy, the sudden void of power leaving him lightheaded. He staggered, his boots slipping in the mud, before regaining his footing through sheer force of will.
The riot quieted down almost in an instant.
The air, which had been thick with a predatory heat, turned cold and stagnant. Thousands of people stood frozen, blinking as if waking from a fever dream, looking at their bloodied hands in confusion. Then, their eyes drifted toward the only two people still standing straight and clear-headed: the hazel-eyed Omega and the taller Alpha who held their capturer bound by his own clothes over a broad shoulder.
A girl who recognized Asarmose hurried toward him, her small feet splashing through the puddles. She moved to him like he was her mother, her lifeline in the dark.
"Y-you're alive," she stuttered, her voice small and trembling.
"Yes, little one," Asarmose said, his voice soft but carrying that innate, regal weight. He patted her head with a gentle hand, his long fingers brushing against her matted hair. She clutched his clothes tightly, burying her face in the fabric.
As he looked over her head at the hundreds of dazed, broken people, a flash of regret crossed his eyes. He saw the carnage he had ignited in the name of "fun," the way he had manipulated their dormant souls just to see them bite back.
Just then, a familiar whistle—sharp and rhythmic—echoed from the gates of the camp.
Vane, hearing that sound, widened his eyes. He began to wiggle violently against Alistair's grip, his muffled noises turning into panicked, frantic grunts as if desperate to escape before he was found.
Alistair and Asarmose glanced at each other, a silent understanding passing between them. Without a word, they made their way toward the sound. The crowd of workers parted like the Red Sea, their instincts telling them that these two were the only ones who could keep them safe. They followed at their backs, a silent, spectral army.
Standing outside the gates, a familiar figure stepped out of the thick brush.
Elara froze, her gaze darting between the two men. "You again?" she started, her hand hovering over the hilt of her blade. "I thought I told you—"
The words died in her throat. Her eyes fell on the small girl clutching at the Prince's clothes.
"Diana?" she whispered, her voice cracking.
Hearing the name that nobody had called her in months, the girl slowly lifted her face. Her eyes widened, tears welling up and spilling over her soot-stained cheeks. She let go of Asarmose and ran straight into Elara's arms, wailing a single, heart-wrenching word: "Mama!"
The rest of the group hidden in the bushes emerged, their weapons lowered but their faces etched with shock. An old man, who looked to be much sturdier than his years suggested, walked toward the center of the clearing. He glanced at the carnage within the gates, then at the thousands of silent workers standing behind the two strangers.
Hearing how unnervingly quiet the place had become, he looked at Alistair and Asarmose and asked, "What happened here?"
Alistair dropped Vane like a heavy sack. The scholar landed on the ground with a thud, wincing in pain as the air left his lungs. Alistair, otherwise known as "Kael," looked toward Asarmose to come up with an excuse.
Asarmose, otherwise known as "Aris," spoke with a calm, practiced ease. "We came to the camp to look for refuge". He began.
"Then some guards dragged me to someplace known as the Black Barrack. My partner, seeing I was in danger, acted up and ended up dragged to the same place."
He trailed his eyes towards the man on the ground "This man was there, concocting some kind of potion. Next thing we knew, dark smoke came out—it must have triggered something in our systems."
The man arched his brows, finding it hard to believe his words but continued to listen
"My partner and the others in the camp began rampaging. Kael tore through the bondage which held him down and wanted to attack, but he suddenly stopped as if his mind was clear again. Using the opportunity, he captured this man and freed me. When we came out, we saw everywhere was already in a mess."
He stopped trading his next words carefully "What of you? What are you doing here?"
The old man, still visibly confused, replied, "We heard loud noises coming from this direction, so we followed the sound to see what was happening."
His eyes then trailed to the man on the floor, who was desperately trying to merge his face into the ground to stay hidden. The old man squinted, stepped closer, and violently yanked Vane's head up from the dirt by his hair.
"Vane?" the old man gasped. "You were behind all this?"
"Why?" He asked, his voice a low rumble. "You know this man?"
"Yes," the old man started, his voice thick with a mix of horror and fury. He stopped, looking over at Elara, who was still hugging her daughter tightly, sobbing with relief. "He's..."
He took a shaky breath. "He's... Diana's father and Elara's mate."
"What??!!" Alistair and Asarmose shouted in unison, their masks of composure shattering for the first time.
The words hung there, jagged and wrong. Elara didn't scream. She didn't faint. She just stopped breathing for a second, her gaze fixed on a ghost that had suddenly put on skin and bone.
Elara took a single step, her boots crunching on the debris. Her voice was a dry whisper."No. I watched them bury you. You're dead."
Vane's shoulders shook, a frantic, desperate energy radiating off him. "I did it for you, Elara. For all of us."
"For us?" A sharp, jagged laugh broke from her throat—one that sounded more like a sob. She swept her arm out, gesturing to the charred ruins and the hollow-eyed survivors. "You did this for us?
Asarmose cut through the emotion like a scalpel. His voice was terrifyingly level.
"A dead scholar doesn't just stay hidden for years. You were funded. You were protected. All while you built this misery in the shadows."
Alistair's expression shifted, his eyes darkening as the pieces clicked into place. The betrayal wasn't just personal; it was systemic. "So this wasn't a desperate play," he murmured. "It was a blueprint."
Vane finally snapped, his composure crumbling into a feverish defense."You don't see it! I gave this world order! I created stability! I took the chaos of the streets and turned it into obedience. I built a perfect system!"
"You didn't build a system," Asarmose corrected, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous rumble. "You just built a bigger cage for your slaves."
Elara's blade left its sheath with a hiss of steel. The point leveled at Vane's throat, her knuckles white, her hand visibly trembling.
The peole held their breath.
"I should kill you," she whispered, the edge of the sword dancing against his skin. "I've spent years wishing I could say goodbye. Now I just wish you'd stayed in the ground."
She looked at him—really looked at the small, broken man he had become—and the fire in her eyes went out, replaced by a cold, hollow pity. She sheathed the sword.
"But I won't. Dying is too easy, and you don't deserve the mercy of an end."
Alistair grabbed a handful of Vane's collar and hauled him upward, forcing the man to find his feet. The scholar looked small now, stripped of the grand illusions of his "perfect system."
"This changes things," Alistair said, his voice grating like stone on stone. He didn't look at Vane; his eyes were locked on the horizon, already calculating the fallout.
Asarmose didn't answer immediately. He let his gaze drift across the broken camp. He saw the people Vane had tried to flatten into tools—standing among the ruins. They weren't cowering anymore. They were watching. They were breathing like people who had just remembered they had lungs.The machinery of the old world was humming its last, desperate tune, and the silence following it was heavy with the weight of what came next.
"Yes," Asarmose said, the quietness of his voice carrying further than a shout. He looked at the firelight reflecting in the eyes of the newly awakened. "It does."