Chapter 1 - The Weight of Copper and Blood
The rain outside the auction house did not fall so much as it drowned the cobblestones, turning the streets of the Silver Moon lower wards into a mire of gray slush and rotting straw. Inside, the air smelled of wet wool, cheap pipe tobacco, and the distinct, sour metallic tang of human livestock.
Arth stood on the raised block of seasoned oak, her bare toes curling against the frost that seeped through the cracks in the wood. Her shift—a coarse, unbleached linen that scratched against her collarbones—hung loosely on her frame. She was nineteen, though her hollow cheeks and the bruised shadows beneath her gray-blue eyes made her look like a starved child caught in the wreckage of a siege.
"Lot Seventeen," the auctioneer droned, his voice nasal and bored, cutting through the low murmur of the crowd like a dull saw. He didn't even bother to look at her; his ledger was far more interesting, greasy thumb smudging the ink as he turned the page. "Arth of the disgraced Silver Moon line. Omega. Wolfless. Believed barren."
A ripple of low laughter rolled through the front benches. A fat merchant with a fur-lined collar leaned forward, spat a stream of dark tobacco juice into the sawdust, and muttered something about buying her just to scrape the mud off his boots.
Arth lowered her gaze to her own hands. They were trembling, not from the cold—though the chill had long since settled into her marrow—but from the sheer, crushing weight of inadequacy. In the kingdom of Valoria, a shifter’s worth was not measured by intellect, kindness, or endurance. It was measured by the beast sleeping beneath the skin. A wolf meant status, strength, a voice in the pack council, and a place by the hearth.
To be wolfless was to be a ghost in a world of flesh and blood.
Her own father had made that abundantly clear the morning he signed the indenture papers. “A blank page in the family ledger,” he had called her, his voice devoid of anger, which somehow hurt worse. “A mouth that eats without returning the hunt. Take her, take the copper, and rid my halls of this shame.”
"Opening bid... one copper," the auctioneer called out, striking his wooden gavel against the block with a dull thud.
Silence settled over the hall. Not a single hand rose. Not a merchant, not a laborer, not even a broker looking for cheap kitchen help deigned to offer a single coin for her life. The auctioneer sighed, lifting his pen to cross her name off the ledger with a stroke that felt like a sentence of permanent erasure.
"No buyers? Then send her to the—"
The heavy oak doors at the back of the hall didn't just open; they exploded inward, the iron hinges screaming in protest as a gust of freezing wind tore through the room, instantly extinguishing half the tallow candles.
The crowd gasped, scrambling backward as a phalanx of royal guards marched in, their silver-plated armor gleaming with the crest of the regent—a coiled viper beneath a crescent moon. The heavy iron-shod boots of the soldiers struck the stone floor in terrifying, synchronized unison.
Between them walked Lord Alriken.
The uncle to King Zepharos and acting regent of the realm did not need to run or shout to command absolute terror. He was a man carved from old ice, tall and impeccably dressed in midnight-blue velvet trimmed with silver fox fur. His eyes, small and dark like obsidian beads, swept over the huddled masses of merchants and slaves.
Every single person in the room bowed or averted their gaze. They all knew why Alriken ruled instead of his nephew.
King Zepharos was a monster trapped in a dead man’s skin.
Years ago, during the disastrous campaign of the Witch Wars, Zepharos had fallen beneath the blades of the Northern Coven. His heart had stopped for three days. Desperate to keep the bloodline from perishing, the royal court had turned to forbidden necromancy, dragging his soul back across the veil through dark rituals and sacrificial blood.
They got their king back, but something else came across with him.
The Shadow Blight.
It was a malignant, sentient corruption that lived deep within his wolf, feeding on every drop of rage, every flash of loneliness, and every ounce of physical pain the king suffered. Over the years, the blight had grown, consuming his mind until the legendary Alpha King became a nightmare that even his fiercest generals dared not approach. Every night, his inhuman howls shook the stones of Blackwood Citadel. Healers had tried purging it with holy water and burned herbs, only to be torn apart. Priestesses had sung hymns of light until their throats bled, only to be silenced by snapping jaws. And the omegas—sent into his tower under the false promise of soothing a troubled soul—had never walked out alive.
Alriken strolled down the central aisle, his boots crunching on the sawdust. He stopped at the foot of the auction block, looking up at Arth with a gaze so devoid of human warmth it made her breath catch in her throat.
"You," Alriken murmured, his voice carrying effortlessly across the cavernous room.
Arth’s stomach plummeted into an abyss. "My lord..."
"The wolfless one," Alriken continued, as if inspecting a diseased sheep. He reached into his velvet pouch, pulled out a heavy gold sovereign, and tossed it carelessly onto the wooden block. It rolled, spinning in circles before coming to a rest against Arth’s bare heel. "She will be this month’s tribute."
A collective intake of breath hissed through the hall. Even the auctioneer, a man whose soul had long since been pickled in cruelty, looked genuinely horrified.
"My lord, surely you want someone stronger?" the auctioneer stammered, wiping sweat from his forehead. "A trained omega from the eastern dens? Someone with a semblance of a pack bond?"
"She is disposable," Alriken replied coldly, turning his back on the block without sparing her another glance. "Throw her in the tower. Let us see how long the monster takes to chew through nothingness."
May you like
Disposable.
The word echoed in Arth’s ears like a funeral bell as the guards seized her arms, their iron gauntlets biting into her delicate skin, dragging her down the steps and out into the freezing rain.
