The meeting hall is instantly plunged into a deafening silence.
Not a sound escapes from a single person, and those who were fidgeting in discomfort at the brewing tension are now frozen still by the menacing aura that coats the very air in the room.
It's so quiet that one would be able to hear a pin drop.
Even Marquess Grisel, who seemed so confident about delivering the news, has raised his guard, cautious about the lack of reaction he was no doubt hoping for.
As a beta, Ignacia may not be able to sense pheromones as well as the average alpha or omega, but even she can detect the sudden burst of frosty air.
His Highness Aspen's scent swirls around the room, clinging to every surface and giving the illusion that the temperature has dropped to freezing levels.
Ignacia's nose twitches at the intensity of it all, the smell of winter so strong in her lungs that she holds her breath involuntarily.
The chandelier hung from the ceiling above flickers once, as though the thick, almost tangible tension is causing it to malfunction.
Appalled at the marquess' audacity and at the forbidden words that he just spoke, Ignacia wonders if she should intervene before the situation devolves into something irreversible.
Everyone in high society knows, to some extent, the story of how First Prince Aspen was discovered and brought into the palace at age eighteen.
Although the details of how he was found were kept strictly confidential, the huge commotion that was caused when he was first brought into the palace was one that couldn't have been covered up.
Four imperial knights from the emperor's palace were barely enough to contain his rage-filled struggle at the time. And the sound of the young prince kicking and swearing at everyone within the range of his sight had even been reported in the news just days after his first appearance in the palace.
By then, it was too late for the emperor to squash the rumours that he had forcibly dragged his hidden son out from the slums in the southern territories.
In no time at all, nobility had dug up anything they could about how the first prince came to be, and it wasn't long before news of the deaths of numerous imperial scouts blew up among the public.
Many speculated that their deaths had everything to do with the emperor's decisions to uproot the prince and force him into the palace. Others dismissed it as nonsense, especially when the emperor made a public announcement that the imperial scouts had encountered assassins while he was away in the south looking for his son. And that a large handful of them had either died or gone missing in the process of evacuating the emperor to safety.
Eventually, the belief that a child who had not yet come of age or even received any formal training could have demolished a portion the imperial scouts so easily died down.
But there remained a deep-seated curiosity in the capital region's nobles, for depending on the truth, they could use it in either malicious or self-serving ways.
Of course, the first prince's origins continued to be a point of discussion among the youngsters in high society. The affairs of royalty are always a hot topic among the nobles in the capital.
And it was at a tea party filled with young noble ladies that new gossip surfaced. Several of the nobles present contemplated the possibility of His Highness Aspen's attachment to the south being the reason he had refused to come to the palace.
When rumours spread in the capital that His Highness must have had people he cared about whom he was reluctant to part with in the southern region, the most likely explanation nobility could come up with was that he had wanted to stay with the people who raised him.
The prince had been in good health when he was found. If he had truly been left to roam the streets, homeless and without anyone to care for him, he would have appeared much more sickly and malnourished.
The fact that he hadn't made the nobles in the capital think that he had been raised properly in a house, with food and warmth, as scarce as it might have been.
To test this theory, some of the young nobles who attended His Highness Aspen's coming-of-age ceremony decided that it was a splendid idea to glean some information from the exchanges that would surely take place during the banquet itself.
At the time, the coming-of-age ceremony was the first prince's introduction to high society, where he would be presenting himself to the public after proper education.
Before that, he had been confined in the palace to learn the rules and etiquette of House Myllena as a new member of royalty.
No one knew what to expect of First Prince Aspen, and the incident where he was seen dragged into the palace fighting for all he was worth had long since been forgotten by many.
But when he made his appearance, it was evident from a glance that His Highness Aspen wanted nothing to do with anyone in the reception area waiting for him.
He was the spitting image of the late empress, and those who recognised his features had been, without a doubt, momentarily transported back to the time when Empress Charlize's family, House Samior, was still a powerful force among nobility.
First Prince Aspen's initial persona instantly became one that was synonymous with his late mother, but the way in which he presented himself was the complete opposite of the late empress, who was known for being an elegant, picture-perfect beauty.
His vibrant, fuchsia hair was cropped short and uneven, as though a chunk of it had been cut off haphazardly and hastily fixed. And although he was dressed in the finest clothes one could find in the country, he looked stiff and disgusted with himself as he stood above everyone to greet his guests.
But the one thing that set the first prince apart from his other siblings was the brilliant, blazing gold of his eyes.
They were narrowed with barely concealed annoyance, and pierced through every single person in the reception hall that night, burning with defiance.
His first impression had been intimidating, to say the least.
Ignacia herself was there that night, but she had already been visiting him since she first entered the palace, so she was one of the few who wasn't fazed in the least.
Many nobles had swallowed their fear and approached him when he descended the stairs from the balcony through which he appeared.
Despite his obvious irritation at being surrounded, His Highness Aspen had tolerated it all with surprising restraint.
However, the night took a turn for the worse when the daughter of a viscount brought up the prince's origins while gossiping with her friends. And it just so happened that as she was busy badmouthing the "lowly vermin who must have raised the prince", His Highness Aspen had walked past none the wiser, and overheard her conversation.
In an instant, the banquet was plunged into chaos, and at the centre of it all was the prince and the lady who had unthinkingly blurted out an insult she couldn't afford to make.
His Highness had pounced on the girl and grabbed her by the throat with a threatening snarl, cutting off her air supply as he crouched over her with a furious look on his face.
The screams and calls for help could have blown the roof of the banquet hall off. Everyone had frantically rushed out of the prince's way, terrified by his sudden whirlwind of ire.
Ignacia still remembers the words he spoke that day - so full of rage and sorrow that she couldn't help but feel sad for him.
"Say that again, I dare you! Shall I rip that vile tongue of yours out, you detestable wretch? Since you know nothing about me or my past, you should have known better than to run your mouth in a place where I can hear you. If I ever hear you insult my family again, I'll tear you to pieces and string your remains along the palace gates!!"
That night, the banquet ended in ruins.
It was the beginning of His Highness' reputation as a frightful alpha who blew up at any mistake one made, and it cemented his status as a tyrant in the eyes of the nobility and the commoners.
If there was one thing that he got out of that disastrous banquet, it was that no one dared to mention the prince's past again, not even as passing gossip.
Until today, that is.
Ignacia stands beside His Highness Aspen, shivering slightly from the chilling atmosphere in the meeting hall.
She had no idea that Marquess Grisel would be so bold as to repeat his informant's report word for word, without leaving anything out.
His Highness' mood hasn't been this dark for years, and the heavy, suffocating silence only scares her.
After a few moments, during which Ignacia casts multiple glances down at the alpha's clenched fists, His Highness speaks, his words terrifyingly quiet.
"Gutter rats, you say?"
The chills that run down Ignacia's spine at the sound of the alpha's frightfully calm voice make the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
Alarm bells start to ring in Ignacia's mind as she sees the menacingly blank look on His Highness Aspen's face twist into pure, unadulterated fury.
"Slaughtered..., you say?" His words, devoid of emotion as they are, carry enormous, inexplicable weight to them.
Ignacia glances down nervously at her liege, hoping and praying that he will manage to contain his anger for the sake of a smooth meeting.
But when she spies his trembling fists loosening to hang by his sides, she knows that it's too late.
Before she can warn the nobles or Count Velloni of the incoming conflict, Prince Aspen is out of his seat and moving so fast that he's nothing but a blur of motion.
In less than a second, he appears before Marquess Grisel, crouching down on the table as he snatches the marquess by the collar of his attire, and hauls him up with a single hand until he's straightening from his position and standing on the table.
Barely given time to anticipate the sudden attack, Marquess Grisel chokes on his surprise, his eyes widening in horror and his words dying on his tongue when he realises he's been lifted off the ground.
He kicks and flails in the air, an automatic response to being deprived of oxygen, but because the tips of his leather-covered feet barely brush against the table, the only thing he can do is dangle precariously in His Highness' iron grip and gasp for air.
"You have some nerve, you pompous old viper. Even knowing how much I detest such insults, you still dare to bring it up as an excuse to flaunt your influence? Who do you think you are to delude yourself into thinking you can get away with such blatant disrespect, you fool?" Prince Aspen growls into his face, his fangs bared and his eyes gleaming with rage.