Page 190 of Run Little Omega

Flora settles beside me, close enough to speak privately while respecting the invisible boundary around our newly formed family unit. "Yes and no." Her voice drops further, though her expression brightens with poorly concealed excitement. "The Wild Magic is... spreading. On its own. Beyond the palace walls. Reports come from all four territories—omegas awakening to cillae, magic responding to emotion rather than training."

A savage satisfaction warms my chest, starting as a tight knot beneath my breastbone and expanding outward like Ember's fire magic. "Good. Let them try to stuff that magic back in its box."

Court separation was never natural—always enforced through selective breeding, through cullings, through rigid training that punished any deviation from artificial norms. Wild Magic remembering its original, balanced state feels like justice long delayed but finally arriving.

"The backlash has already begun," she continues, expression sobering. "Summer Court has deployed hunters to capture awakened omegas for binding. Spring Court healers work to develop stronger suppression collars." She hesitates, looking uncomfortable. "And Nessa has been captured trying to reach Autumn Court territory."

The name sends a spike of complicated emotions through me. Nessa, who betrayed us, whose information led to the assault on the palace. I remember her as she was during the Hunt—terrified, her blue eyes darting frantically as she huddled in that shallow cave. I remember guiding her toward safety, not knowing she would later endanger everything we fought to build.

I should hate her, but all I feel is a hollow sadness. Another omega trapped by impossible choices, doing what she thought necessary to survive. The courts have always excelled at turning sisters against sisters—enforcing hierarchy where unity would threaten control.

"What will they do to her?" I ask, already knowing the answer.

Flora's jaw tightens. "Binding, most likely. The Raveling Brothers had... methods... of extracting information while keeping subjects alive, if not intact."

I think of the identical twins with their perfect synchronization, their sharing of claimed omegas, their sadistic enjoyment of suffering. My hand drifts to the scar on my side where Blaim's claws raked me during our final confrontation.

"And what about The Collector and the others we faced?" I ask, remembering the bronzed skin and amber eyes that regarded me like a particularly interesting specimen.

"Dead," Flora says with finality, satisfaction evident in her voice despite her attempt at neutrality. "All of them. The Wild Magic seems to have established a new precedent—those killed by it cannot be resurrected through court magic. The Autumn Court necromancers tried with both The Collector and the Raveling Brothers. Their bodies simply dissolved into frost when resurrection was attempted. And Lord Klairs Thorn..." She shivers slightly. "The Wild Magic left nothing of him to resurrect."

I think of the trail of bodies Cadeyrn and I left during the Hunt—alphas dispatched with increasing brutality as his protection of his claimed omega intensified. The Winter Prince who tore through enemies with cold precision, leaving warnings arranged in forest clearings. The blacksmith's apprentice who killed the Raveling Brothers when they attacked her. Death that remains death, not circumvented by court magic. There's a certain finality to it that feels right, even necessary.

The Wild Magic imposes its own rules—balance rather than dominance, transformation rather than stagnation. Those who violate that balance, who sought to harvest its power while maintaining artificial separation, find no mercy in its justice.

"And Wren?" I ask, remembering the midwife's steady hands guiding my children into the world, her practical courage during our escape through the palace depths.

"Gone," Flora admits, twisting a strand of silver-streaked hair. "Slipped away during the night. No one knows where."

I'm not surprised. Wren helped me when it mattered, but she has her own child to protect, her own impossible choices to navigate. I hope she finds safety in whatever refuge she seeks. Another survivor of the Hunt, making her own path forward.

"And Elder Iris?" I press, remembering the deceptively gentle eyes that regarded me with clinical detachment in that underground birthing chamber. The ancient Spring Court emissary who designed the modern Hunt, who viewed me as breeding stock rather than person, who almost forced my labor prematurely to harvest my children's magic.

Flora's expression darkens, cillae flaring briefly with remembered fear. "Dead. She tried to breach the throne room during the night with binding magic. The Wild Magic... rejected her. She simply ceased to exist." She rubs her arms as though chilled by the memory. "The awakened guards say it was as if the very air itself recognized her as a threat to what you've created and... unmade her."

Another life claimed in this conflict, though I feel no remorse for the Spring Court emissary who engineered so much suffering over centuries. Some enemies cannot be converted, cannot be awakened. Some must simply be removed from the equation entirely.

Wild Magic brings destruction, yes—but destruction aimed at restoring balance rather than maintaining artificial separation. Like forest fires that clear undergrowth to allow new growth, some systems must burn before they can heal.

The throne room doors creak open, and I tense instinctively, one arm moving to shield my children. Frost magic gathers at my fingertips, ready to strike despite my exhaustion.

But it's Lady Midnight who enters, her almost-translucent skin now marked with swirling cillae that incorporate all four seasonal elements. The Winter Court's chief diplomat moves with the same elegant precision as always, but something has changed in her bearing—a new awareness that transcends court protocol.

"Prince Cadeyrn," she calls, her voice carrying that harmonic quality of awakened magic. "Lady Briar. Forgive the intrusion, but there's someone you should see."

She steps aside, revealing a small figure supported between two guards—Mira, her chest bandaged where the frost spear struck her during yesterday's chaos. Her face is ashen with the gray pallor of approaching death, her breathing labored, but cillae pulse across her skin with surprising vitality for someone who took a killing blow.

"Mira!" I exclaim, disturbing Ember who fusses in protest, tiny fists trailing sparks. "You're alive!"

"Barely," she manages, a weak smile flickering across features strained with pain. "The healers say the Wild Magic is keeping me... together. They don't know for how long."

Cadeyrn stirs beside me, roused by the commotion. His eyes assess the situation with immediate clarity, centuries of court training instantly overriding sleep's lingering fog. Through our bond, I feel his physical pain—the wound may have closed, but healing remains incomplete beneath the surface—yet his focus narrows instantaneously to the tactical situation before us.

"Bring her closer," he commands, already rising despite his own still-healing wounds.

The guards support Mira to the throne, where she collapses with visible relief. Up close, I can see the extent of her injury—the frost spear took her just below the collarbone, puncturing lung and likely heart, a wound that should have been instantly fatal. Yet she breathes, her eyes clear despite the pain evident in every line of her face.

Frost patterns spiral across her skin in chaotic formations, Wild Magic fighting to maintain life against devastating damage. The patterns pulse erratically, weakening with each breath—magic powerful enough to delay death, but not to prevent it entirely.

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