Page 93 of Run Little Omega

This isn't a natural cavity beneath the oak. Someone—or many someones—carved this space deliberately. Floor-to-ceiling shelves line the circular walls, packed with books, scrolls, and wooden containers. Free-standing cabinets create a labyrinth in the chamber's center, each drawer marked with symbols I don't recognize. Crystals similar to the one the Survivor holds cast the room in soft azure light from strategic positions.

"What is all this?" I whisper, reluctant to disturb the weighted silence.

"The archives." The Survivor navigates among the shelves with practiced familiarity. "For generations, those who escaped the Hunt have preserved what the courts would erase—evidence of what truly happens during the Hunt and afterward."

I approach a nearby shelf, drawn to a collection of small leather-bound journals. Each bears a date stamped on its spine, regular intervals stretching back decades.

"Hunt records," the Survivor explains, noticing my interest. "Testimonies from survivors, either through escape or by being deemed valuable enough to keep. I've dedicated my life to collecting them, alongside documents smuggled from court archives by sympathetic servants or seized during raids."

I extract one journal from the shelf, its leather cracked with age. Inside, cramped, desperate handwriting details a Hunt three cycles past. The account twists my insides—violent claimings, alphas fighting over omegas until their prey was torn apart, court physicians harvesting samples from the dead for undisclosed purposes.

"Why show me this?" I ask, though suspicion already forms.

"Because you're different." The Survivor touches the spiral pattern tracing up my arm. "The Wild Magic awakening in you is reviving something long dormant—something the courts have systematically suppressed for centuries."

She moves deeper into the chamber, toward shelves of newer construction and more precise organization. From a locked cabinet, she retrieves a stack of documents bound with black ribbon.

"These were most difficult to acquire." Her voice drops, as though the walls themselves might betray her words. "Winter Court execution orders from the past seven Hunt cycles."

My pulse stumbles as she places the bundle in my hands. The paper weighs heavier than anything made in human villages, its texture almost silken against my fingers. The ink shimmers with faint blue luminescence, and my stomach drops as I recognize the elegant signature at each page's bottom.

Prince Cadeyrn of the Winter Court, Seventh of His Line, Keeper of the Frost Throne.

"What are these?" My voice sounds distant, hollow.

"Authorization for the cullings. Explicit instructions on processing omegas deemed unsuitable for continued breeding."

I scan the pages, nausea rising at the clinical language describing living women.Subject displays insufficient magical receptivity. Cull and harvest magical essence. Subject shows weak blood response. Cull and preserve samples.

"He signed these," I whisper, tracing his signature with unsteady fingers. "Every one."

"For centuries." The Survivor's voice carries something resembling pity. "The Winter Prince has overseen more cullings than any other royal, his name authorizing more death warrants than all other courts combined."

The silver-blue markings on my skin react to my distress, spreading across my back in jagged, erratic formations rather than the smooth spirals that formed during claiming. I picture Cadeyrn's hands on my body, his mouth at my throat, his consciousness intertwined with mine during our deepest connections. The same hands that authorized this systematized cruelty disguised as necessity.

"I don't understand." I shuffle through more documents, each bearing his unmistakable signature. "He's changed since claiming me. I've felt it through our bond."

"Perhaps." The Survivor retrieves another box from a different section, containing maps marked with symbols I don't recognize. "But seven centuries of habitual cruelty doesn't vanish in a fortnight, regardless of how unprecedented your connection."

She unfolds a map of territories surrounding the Bloodmoon Forest, drawing my attention to an area northeast of the central haven. One symbol appears repeatedly throughout this region—a black crescent moon encircled.

"What do these marks indicate?"

"Disposal sites." Her voice hardens like steel. "Where they discard what they no longer require."

Cold dread pools in my abdomen. "The omegas who don't survive culling."

"Among other things." She returns the map to its container, expression grim. "There's more you must witness, but not here. Not in drawings or documents or secondhand accounts."

"What do you mean?"

"Some truths require firsthand witness to be believed." She presses a small cloth bundle into my palm. "Take this. You'll need its protection where we're going."

I unwrap the bundle to find a pendant of twisted iron and silver, unusual herbs bound at its center. The metal weighs unnaturally heavy against my skin, as though charged with purpose beyond its physical mass.

"Wear it," she commands. "It offers limited protection from what we'll encounter."

"Where are we going?" I slip the pendant over my head, its weight settling against my chest like a stone.

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