The first thing Argus noticed was the sound.
It wasn't music.
It wasn't voices.
It was the layered quiet of power settling into a single place.
The carriage slowed as it crossed the final threshold, wheels rolling from packed road onto polished stone. The change in texture sent a faint vibration through the frame, subtle but unmistakable. Argus felt it through the bench beneath him, through the soles of his boots.
They had arrived.
The door opened, and cold air rushed in sharp and clean, carrying the faint scent of snow and incense. Argus stepped down carefully, posture straight, expression composed. Gray garments. No visible ornamentation. Only the small pin hidden inside his collar and the simple charm tied beneath his sleeve where no one would see it unless he wanted them to.
Ahead of him rose the Conclave Hall.
It wasn't a single building so much as an interlocked fortress of white stone and dark metal, its edges softened by age but not diminished by it. Towers rose like watchful sentinels. Ancient sigils were threaded through the walls like veins, faintly luminous in the early light. Banners hung from high arches, motionless despite the wind, as if the air itself had been told to behave.
Each banner bore a crest.
House Aethra's silver mark.
House Drazeth's iron-red emblem.
House Eryndel's pale-blue sigil like a frost-lily.
Others he didn't yet know, but their presence still pressed into him. A split-flame crest in crimson. A deep green emblem shaped like a coiled thorn. A gold crest etched so subtly it almost disappeared unless the light caught it.
Each banner was a declaration.
You are being watched by people who expect you to matter someday.
Argus followed his siblings forward, half a step behind as instructed. Servants moved in practiced lines, directing arriving families through designated entrances. Guards stood at measured intervals, calm and absolute. This place was neutral ground, but neutrality here wasn't trust. It was enforcement.
Argus kept his gaze level and his breathing controlled.
Eyes found him almost immediately.
Not stares. Glances.
Quick assessments. Weight measurements. Silent judgments.
Children his age stood with parents or attendants, dressed in colors that marked lineage and rank. Silver. Deep blue. Crimson. Pale gold. Some wore jewelry that looked ceremonial. Some wore none, and that absence carried its own authority.
Gray was rare.
Argus felt the subtle shift as people noticed it.
Branch-born.
Not hidden.
Displayed.
He resisted the urge to look down at his own sleeves. That impulse alone would be a concession.
He didn't give them one.
Inside, the main hall opened dramatically.
High ceilings arched overhead, supported by columns etched with inscriptions Argus couldn't read but recognized as old. The air was warmer than outside, carefully controlled, but it still felt crisp, as if the hall refused to become soft. Light filtered through crystalline panels overhead, scattering across the polished floor in fractured patterns that made the center space shimmer.
The center was deliberately empty.
No furniture.
No cover.
A stage without calling itself one.
Families arranged themselves around the perimeter in loose clusters, guided by placement and tradition. Some groups gravitated together immediately, alliances made visible through proximity. Others kept careful distance, watching before committing.
House Aethra took its place with practiced ease.
Eldric stood near the front of the cluster, posture relaxed, expression unreadable. He didn't need to speak. His presence drew attention without effort.
Maelis hovered close to the core, her smile composed, her posture flawless. She looked like someone who had been trained from birth not only to be seen, but to control what being seen meant.
Vaelor moved like he belonged, greeting peers with easy familiarity. He laughed at the right moments. He angled his body so the right people caught glimpses of his profile and crest. He was playing a room the way some boys played games.
Theron stayed near the edge, eyes scanning, face neutral. The only sibling here who looked like a weapon instead of an ornament.
Argus took his place where he was meant to be: visible enough to be counted, peripheral enough to be dismissed.
He absorbed the room.
The spacing between clusters. Who stood behind whom. Which adults stood with their backs open, unconcerned about threats. Which kept their children in closer orbit, as if they didn't trust the neutral ground as much as they pretended.
This was not a gathering.
It was a sorting.
The system stirred faintly behind his right eye, not loud, not intrusive. Just present.
High-density social environment detected.Observation recommended.
Argus didn't respond outwardly.
"I know," he thought.
Movement within the hall had rules.
Servants flowed through space like water, never interrupting, never hesitating. Attendants hovered close to their families, carrying objects, adjusting cloaks, murmuring reminders. Guards remained still, but their stillness felt like pressure, like a hand resting on the hilt of something invisible.
Argus noticed how people treated servants.
Some never looked at them at all.
Some thanked them with a smile that felt rehearsed.
A few spoke to them the way they spoke to dogs: not cruelly, but without recognition.
Argus's eyes lingered briefly on those few.
It was a habit from his first life, where you learned quickly what people were when they believed no one important was watching.
Here, everyone important was watching.
Which meant the behavior was deliberate.
He kept his face neutral and his hands still.
A servant approached with a tray of drinks. Argus declined with a small nod. The servant moved on without pause, as if this had been expected.
He wondered briefly if it had.
Introductions began without announcement.
Not formal, not staged. Just the quiet drift of power toward power.
A pale-blue cluster approached House Aethra.
House Eryndel.
Argus recognized the crest and the way the air felt slightly cooler near them, whether from magic or presence he couldn't say. A girl close to his age stood near the front of that group, her expression pleasant, her posture effortless. She moved like she had never once doubted her right to occupy space.
She greeted Maelis first.
"House Aethra," she said warmly. "It's been too long."
Maelis inclined her head. "You're looking well."
Pleasantries that were not pleasantries.
Argus listened without appearing to.
The Eryndel girl's gaze drifted to him briefly, polite interest on the surface, careful assessment beneath.
"Oh?" she said lightly, not asking, prompting. "And this must be…"
"Argus," Maelis interjected smoothly. "A younger branch member."
The Eryndel girl's smile remained unchanged, but the temperature of her eyes shifted. Not cruelty. Not pity.
Categorization.
"How quaint," she said. "It's good to see House Aethra nurturing all its lines."
Argus inclined his head. "I'm honored to attend."
The Eryndel girl studied him for a heartbeat longer than courtesy required.
"Are you?" she asked softly.
The question was simple. The trap was not.
If Argus said yes too eagerly, he'd look hungry. If he said no, he'd look bitter. Either could be used later.
So he answered with a truth that didn't expose his throat.
"I'm honored to learn," he said.
The girl's smile widened slightly, amused. "How careful."
Then she turned back to Maelis as if Argus were a detail already processed.
Argus didn't react.
He stored her face anyway.
Pale-blue. Controlled gaze. Too intelligent to be careless.
He didn't know her name yet.
But he knew she mattered.
As the hall continued to fill, Argus sensed a ripple move through the crowd.
Not fear.
Attention shifting, synchronized. Like people had turned toward something before it spoke.
A presence entered.
Not announced. Not dramatic. But undeniable.
Argus turned his head slightly, careful not to stare.
House Drazeth moved with blunt certainty. Their attendants were fewer. Their banners looked heavier. Their children looked less decorated and more trained.
At their center walked a boy older than Argus by a year or two, broader in the shoulders, posture relaxed in a way that didn't read as laziness. It read as confidence so deep it didn't need to be displayed.
Iron-red.
Contained pressure.
Tharos Drazeth.
Argus didn't know him personally, but rumor had carried the shape of him.
The unnaturally strong body.
The recovery that didn't make sense.
The calm mind that made him more than muscle.
Tharos's gaze swept the room once, measuring without rushing. When his eyes met Argus's, something paused.
Not recognition.
Curiosity.
Tharos inclined his head, the gesture small but deliberate.
Argus returned it.
That was all.
But it felt like a line drawn.
Not friendship.
Acknowledgment.
The kind that said: I see you as something that might survive long enough to matter.
Tharos moved on, swallowed by his family's cluster.
Argus exhaled slowly.
He didn't want to be seen by people like that yet.
But wanting didn't change reality.
Minutes passed.
Then more.
The hall filled with layered conversations, laughter that sounded real until you listened for the timing, and compliments sharpened into weapons by emphasis.
Argus began to notice the rhythm beneath it all.
Approach. Measure. Withdraw.
Approach. Measure. Withdraw.
People didn't talk to learn about someone. They talked to decide what category that person belonged in.
A few lesser-house youths drifted close enough to glance at Argus's gray and then drift away. Some smiled with obvious relief, as if seeing him made them feel safer about their own position.
A small part of Argus wanted to hate them.
He didn't.
They were doing what everyone did in rooms like this.
Trying not to be the weakest thing present.
One older noble's gaze lingered on Argus longer than most. Not hostile. Not curious.
Calculating.
Argus felt his skin tighten faintly.
That look wasn't about him.
It was about what he could be used for.
The word from earlier returned.
Bait.
Argus adjusted his stance subtly, grounding himself.
He let his shoulders soften, his expression remain mild. He was not here to challenge anyone. He was not here to impress anyone.
He was here to leave alive and unbranded.
The system remained quiet, but he could feel it observing, recording tiny details without judgment.
That was almost worse than judgment.
Because it meant it didn't care what anything cost him.
A servant passed near him carrying a folded cloth that brushed his sleeve.
Argus didn't flinch.
But his eyes tracked the servant anyway.
Too close.
Too deliberate.
Then the servant vanished into the crowd.
Argus's mouth tightened slightly.
So even the servants could be pieces.
Of course they could.
By the end of the second hour, the hall's atmosphere had shifted from arrival to expectation.
Something was building.
Not a fight.
Not yet.
A tradition, maybe. A "game." A ritual that allowed children to test one another without adults having to admit they were doing it.
Argus watched Eldric across their cluster. His older brother spoke minimally, but when he did, people listened. Vaelor hovered near groups that mattered, eager to be included. Maelis moved like she was already balancing invisible debts and favors.
Theron's gaze swept the room again and again, as if he could smell danger the way some dogs could.
Argus stayed quiet.
But quiet didn't mean invisible anymore.
Not after Lucien.
Not after the Patriarch's acknowledgment.
Not after being placed here in gray.
Argus felt the pressure building beneath the surface of the conclave like ice about to crack.
He didn't move.
He didn't rush.
He didn't react.
He simply observed, and let the room reveal itself in fragments.
This was only the beginning.