Page 174 of Run Little Omega

"Flora!" I shout as they drag me toward the exit, my heels scraping bloody trails across ice floors. "Tell Cadeyrn they're taking me to the sacred chamber!"

A blow to my temple sends my world spinning, hot blood trickling down my face in a path that mimics the cillae now dimmed beneath iron's touch. Through wavering vision, I see Flora break free from her attacker long enough to cast a desperate glance in my direction.

"We'll find you!" she calls, violet eyes burning with a fury I've never seen from her carefully controlled demeanor. "The Wild Magic will?—"

The rest of her words vanish as my captors haul me into the corridor, leaving the throne room and our failed sanctuary behind. The second capture in as many hours. Our careful plans unraveling like winter ice in spring thaw.

The palace itself fights against our passage—walls closing like jaws, floors buckling to trip hunter feet. Hallways that led one direction suddenly twist toward dead ends. But the iron collar neutralizes these efforts, creating a bubble of normalcy around us. Wherever we pass, the living ice reverts to mere architecture, its awakened voice silenced by the same iron that chokes my magic.

We descend through levels of the palace I never knew existed, past the tunnels I traveled just hours ago fleeing The Collector. The temperature plummets with each staircase until even my transformed body trembles with a cold deeper than winter's heart. The walls here aren't just ice but something older—black stone threaded with tarnished silver that pulses weakly like the last breaths of a dying beast.

"The ancient birthing chamber," one hunter explains, noticing my gaze. "Built before the courts themselves divided."

The air reeks of old power—not just winter's clean frost but all four courts mixed together, layered over centuries of use. I smell spring's green growth, summer's golden heat, autumn's earthy decay, winter's crystalline stillness—all crowded together in unnatural proximity. This place has witnessed countless births, yet something about it feels corrupted. Like metal worked too many times, folded and hammered until it breaks rather than bends.

Finally, we reach a circular chamber deep beneath everything I thought I knew about the palace. Black walls rise to a domed ceiling pierced by a single shaft of crimson moonlight, magnified through ancient crystal to fall directly on the chamber's center. At that center stands a table of black stone, scarred with symbols that make my vision swim when I try to focus on them.

Elder Iris Bloom waits at the table, her ageless face serene despite the chaos raging above. Her spring-green skin glows with inner light, flowering vines growing from her hair in delicate patterns that belie the cruelty beneath. Beside her stands Wren, the midwife omega from the Hunt, her body rigid with barely contained terror.

"The omega arrives," Elder Iris announces, her voice honeyed yet cold as winter lake water. "Again. How persistent you are, little blacksmith."

My captors drag me forward, slamming me onto the stone table with enough force to drive the breath from my lungs. The iron net burns deeper as they secure me with manacles of the same material, each touch sending fresh pain through frost-marked skin until I taste blood from biting my cheek.

"Did you really think we wouldn't have contingency plans?" Elder Iris asks, approaching with measured steps. Her fingers trace patterns in the air, leaving trails of spring magic that scent the room with false sweetness. "That we wouldn't be prepared for your little throne room sanctuary after your first escape? Four vessels carrying Wild Magic that could destroy everything we've built over millennia?"

"Built or corrupted?" I spit back, tasting blood where my newly grown fangs have cut into my lip. "The courts twisted what was meant to be whole. You're not preserving order—you're maintaining prisons."

Something dark flickers across her perfect face—not doubt but recognition, quickly suppressed beneath layers of certainty built over centuries. "Such rebellious thoughts are exactly why this power must be contained. Wild Magic brings only chaos and destruction."

"It brings balance," I correct, straining against iron that slices deeper with each movement. "Something the courts forgot generations ago when they started culling omegas who showed signs of awakening."

The four little ones shift inside me, responding to my anger with movement. Even through iron's suppression, I feel their distinct signatures: the fierce heat of the first, the steady pulse of the second, the quicksilver flutter of the third, the deep calm of the fourth. Four elements. Four seasons. Four aspects of magic that should never have been divided.

Elder Iris turns to Wren, who stands with fingers twisting against each other. "Prepare her for extraction. We need to harvest the vessels' magic the moment they're removed."

Removed. Not born. The clinical detachment in her voice makes my stomach heave. These aren't babies to her but repositories containing power she covets.

Wren steps forward, her movements stiff with reluctance. Up close, her eyes reveal conflict—professional duty warring with moral revulsion. "This will cause agony," she whispers, her voice barely audible. "Extraction without natural birth tears both body and spirit. The vessels may not survive."

"Their bodies are secondary," Elder Iris replies with casual cruelty. "The power they contain is our priority."

"Why help them?" I ask Wren, wincing as she arranges iron tools on a side table. "You're an omega. You've seen their cruelty."

Her hands falter, eyes darting to the hunters stationed around the chamber. "My daughter lives under their control," she breathes, the words ghost-soft. "I serve or she suffers. No choice is a choice."

Understanding cuts deeper than any iron. Another omega trapped by impossible options, doing unspeakable things to protect her child. Can I condemn her when I entered the Hunt for the same reason—sacrificing everything to save Willow?

"We begin when the crimson moon centers," Elder Iris announces, watching the bloody light inch across the floor. "Prepare the vessels."

The hunters arrange crystal containers around the table—four glass wombs waiting to receive children torn from their rightful home. The collar grows heavier, its magic pressing into my throat until each breath burns like forge smoke inhaled too deeply.

Through our claiming bond, I reach desperately for Cadeyrn, pushing against the iron's suppression with all my remaining strength. The sacred chamber beneath the palace, I force through our connection, feeling iron strain to contain the message. They plan to cut out our children.

No immediate response comes, though I sense him fighting somewhere above—hot rage and cold determination mingling through our bond. The battle rages fiercely if he can't break away even knowing I've been captured a second time.

"We're ready," Wren reports, her voice steady despite the tremble in her hands. "The extraction point is marked."

Elder Iris approaches, her hands glowing with unnatural light—spring green, summer gold, autumn amber, winter blue swirling together in grotesque imitation of true balance. "This will accelerate development so the vessels can survive early extraction. Their power will be harvested and properly allocated to appropriate court vessels."

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