Page 121 of Run Little Omega

Cadeyrn's shoulders tense. "And what would this exposure accomplish? Besides putting Briar and the children at risk?"

"Perhaps nothing," I answer before The Hound can speak. "Or perhaps everything. But I need to see it. All of it. Not just the sanitized version you finally forced yourself to witness."

"She doesn't ask for idle reasons," The Hound adds, his voice carrying the weight of someone who has straddled both worlds for generations. "There is an old ritual—older than the courts, from the time of the first Hunt. A blood offering to poisoned ground."

Cadeyrn's eyes narrow. "Blood magic is forbidden by all four courts."

A bitter laugh escapes me. "Are you really going to invoke court laws after killing their physician and guards? After breaking every Hunt protocol? After creating four lives that shouldn't be possible?"

He flinches slightly, but doesn't argue. The transformation that began during our first claiming has progressed in him as surely as the pregnancy has in me. His once-perfect court appearance has given way to something wilder—hair longer, muscles more defined, cillae spreading across his skin in elaborate whorls that match my own.

"What does this ritual involve?" he asks, directing the question to The Hound.

"Willing blood freely given by one who caused harm, spilled on the ground that was poisoned." The Hound's expression remains carefully neutral. "Not as punishment, but as acknowledgment. As offering."

"And what would this accomplish?" Cadeyrn presses.

The Hound shrugs. "Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything. Magic—real magic, Wild Magic—responds to intention more than formula. The courts forgot this when they divided power into rigid systems."

I watch Cadeyrn's face as he considers this, seeing the struggle between centuries of court indoctrination and the new awareness growing within him. Finally, he meets my gaze.

"If we do this, we go prepared. Armed. And at dusk, when the court patrols change shifts." His tone makes it clear these aren't suggestions but conditions. "And you stay hidden while I scout the area first."

I nod, accepting the terms. Not because I've forgiven him, but because survival demands practicality. "When do we leave?"

The journey back to the surface requires caution. Court scouts patrol the forest with increasing frequency, their magical signatures easy for Cadeyrn to detect and avoid. By the time we reach the edge of the Vale of Culling, the crimson sun hangs low in the sky, casting everything in bloody light.

I've never seen anything so desolate. The earth itself seems to recoil from what was done here, refusing to support even the most resilient weeds. In the center of the vale stands a barren tree, its trunk twisted into a shape reminiscent of a screaming woman, branches reaching skyward like pleading arms.

The stench hits me first—not the expected rot of decomposition, but something worse. Magic turned putrid, poisoned by fear and pain and desperation. The quadruplets squirm inside me, responding to the wrongness that permeates this place.

"The main burial site is there," Cadeyrn says quietly, pointing to a depression in the ground near the twisted tree. "What you saw before was only the most recent section. This..." He gestures to the vast barren expanse. "This represents centuries."

Centuries. Hundreds of years of omegas and their unborn children, disposed of like waste. How many lives? How much suffering concentrated in this single location?

"The courts maintained this deliberately," he continues, his voice flat with self-recrimination. "The contaminated runoff was directed toward human settlements because there were more benefits than one. The wasting sickness kept the villagers dependent on fae magic.”

The calculated cruelty of it steals my breath. Not just disposal, but weaponization of the suffering. My mother's face flashes in my memory—once vibrant, gradually hollowed by the same poison that nearly claimed Willow.

"You signed off on this," I say, not a question but a statement of fact.

"I did." Cadeyrn doesn't attempt to soften the admission. "Not just once. Hundreds of times over centuries. I never visited, never questioned the necessity." His breath catches slightly. "Never considered the individual lives affected."

The honesty doesn't ease the pain, but it's better than excuses. Better than the clinical detachment he once embodied.

The Hound appears beside us, moving with the silent grace that gives him his name. "The court patrols have just changed. We have perhaps twenty minutes before the next sweep."

Cadeyrn nods, then turns to me. "What do you need to see?"

"Everything," I reply, my voice stronger than I expected. "Show me where it happened. Where the…assessments occurred."

He flinches at the words but leads me forward, pointing out structures I hadn't noticed at first glance—stone buildings partially reclaimed by barren earth, windowless and oppressive.

"The assessments happened there," he explains, indicating the largest structure. "Omegas deemed unsuitable for continued breeding were assessed for magic worth harvesting. Those with certain auras were taken inside."

The smooth language doesn't disguise the horror. I understand now why he struggled to tell me the full truth before. Some atrocities defy description.

"And after the...harvesting?" I force myself to ask.

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