The middle-aged man of House Caron lay almost flat against the cold floor, his forehead pressed hard into a crack between the stone tiles. His voice shook uncontrollably as he struggled desperately to survive:
"Y-your Highness... we know our crimes! We were foolish, driven by circumstance and blinded by selfishness! From this day forward, we swear upon our houses' honor and our bloodlines to serve your Highness, to remain loyal to the True Dragon, without a second thought!"
The moment he finished, the lesser nobles below the steps, already frightened out of their wits, seized on this lifeline. They knocked their heads against the floor and echoed him in trembling voices:
"House Bolling swears to serve the True Dragon unto death!"
"House Hasty will never waver!"
"House Rogers will obey your Highness in all things!"
In the vast, deathly still Throne Room, pledges of loyalty rose one after another, thick with tears and abasement. Mixed with the dull thuds of foreheads striking stone, they sounded especially wretched.
Aegon looked down from above, his gaze calmly passing over the trembling figures below the steps.
There was no trace of sympathy in his purple eyes, only the cold clarity of someone who saw through them. The faintest curve touched his lips, not a smile, but a shard of ice steeped in scorn and understanding.
"Loyalty?"
His voice was cool and level, yet it cut through their pleas like a thin, sharp blade of ice. It echoed beneath the vaulted ceiling, keen enough to pierce their hearts.
"Your loyalty," he paused slightly, leaving those words hanging cold in the air, "is it not rather... cheap?"
That single sentence gripped their throats like an invisible hand. Their pledges stopped abruptly. They froze where they lay, even their trembling seeming to halt, as a chill