Page 185 of Run Little Omega

As I approach, the throne responds—cillae brightening as it recognizes the magic of the children I carry. Without Cadeyrn's blood to activate it properly, the protection remains incomplete. But the throne itself knows me, welcomes me, ancient magic awakening to protect what grows within my transformed body.

Another contraction seizes me as I settle onto the ancient seat, this one unmistakably transitional. The fire child—the most active of the four little ones, whose quicksilver rhythm reminds me of forge flames dancing in the blacksmith's shop where I grew up—presses insistently at my entrance.

"Circle formation," Flora commands, and the loyal omegas move with practiced coordination, arranging themselves in concentric rings around the throne. Their cillae synchronize with mine, Magic flowing between us in currents that grow stronger with each passing heartbeat.

"The child comes now," Wren announces, taking position before me with professional focus. "No more delays."

I close my eyes, reaching once more through the emptiness where our claiming bond should be. Cadeyrn. If any part of you remains in this world or the next, I need you now. Our children need you.

Nothing returns but silence.

CHAPTER59

POV: Briar

"He's gone,"I whisper, grief splitting me open more violently than any contraction. "Truly gone."

The severed bond feels like a wound that won't cauterize, raw and exposed, bleeding magic instead of blood. A phantom limb I keep reaching for only to find empty air where Cadeyrn should be. The Wild Magic within me spirals erratically, cillae fragmenting across my skin in jagged, unstable lines.

Around me, the omegas' cillae dim in shared mourning. They may not have known him as I did—may not have witnessed his transformation from perfect Winter Prince to something wilder, truer—but they understand the bond's significance. What its loss means for the birth about to occur.

"The protection requires his blood," Flora says quietly, violet eyes meeting mine with painful directness. "Without it..."

"Without it, we do this the old way," I finish, straightening on the throne despite the contraction building like molten metal inside me. "With sisters standing together."

The loyal omegas tighten their formation, frost magic flowing between them in strengthening currents. Not the separate seasonal magics the courts enforced, but something unified, balanced—Wild Magic remembering what it was before court divisions carved it into pieces like butchers portioning meat.

Beyond the sealed doors, I hear the enemy forces gathering—heavy impacts as they test the throne room's defenses. Metal against ice, magic against magic. Time running out. Our tactical position deteriorating by the second. The world collapsing around us even as new life fights to enter it.

"I feel the head," Wren announces, her calm voice anchoring me as another contraction peaks. "Push when you're ready."

The surging pressure transforms pain into purpose—the forge-fire that breaks metal down before remaking it stronger. I bear down, muscles straining as Wild Magic erupts from me in waves of crystalline frost. The patterns scrawling across my skin illuminate the chamber with azure light tinged with crimson, gold, and green—all four seasonal courts represented in a single omega's body, the division that courts spent centuries enforcing now unified in one vessel.

The omegas respond in kind, their combined power creating a protective dome around the throne that pulses with the colors of all four courts. Not separate as the courts insist magic should remain, but interwoven, strengthening each other in ways that the aristocracy has deliberately suppressed through selective breeding and brutal cullings.

"Once more," Wren encourages, hands steady as she guides the emerging life. "The child comes swiftly."

With a final push that tears a primal scream from my throat, the first child slides into the world—a boy, tiny but perfect, skin already marked with cillae that incorporate all four seasonal courts in delicate harmony. He takes his first breath and releases it as a cry that makes the very air shiver with Wild Magic.

Ember.

His name arrives in my consciousness with absolute certainty, knowledge flowing directly from his magical signature to my awareness. Ember, like the heart of a forge that contains both destruction and creation. Like the spark that can either die or consume a forest.

I cradle him against my chest, his tiny form radiating heat that belies his newborn status. He burns against me, fire-nature already asserting itself against the Winter Court's perpetual cold. Already defying the court that would have claimed him—or dissected him for the Wild Magic flowing through his impossibly small veins.

"The first child lives," Wren announces, quickly wrapping him in soft cloth embroidered with protective runes. "A son."

A thunderous impact shakes the throne room doors, frost barriers crackling under the assault. Iron against ice. Control against freedom. Time running out. Three more children still waiting to be born, and enemy forces breaching our final sanctuary.

And Cadeyrn... gone. The emptiness where our bond existed yawns wider, a wound that won't close, bleeding magic instead of blood. The void threatens to swallow me entirely despite the miracle just performed through my body.

Through tear-blurred vision, I study Ember's face—the echo of Cadeyrn in the perfect shape of his brow, the hint of my own stubbornness in the determined set of his tiny jaw. His eyes, when they flicker open briefly, hold flames where irises should be, magic manifesting from his first breath.

"We'll protect you," I promise him, voice breaking on the words. "Even without your father, we'll?—"

A ripple passes through the omegas' protective circle, cillae flickering as something disrupts their synchronized magic. Voices rise in alarm, attention shifting from the sealed main entrance to a side wall where stone begins to warp and flow like ice beneath summer heat.

"Something's breaking through!" Flora warns, frost magic gathering around her hands as she moves to intercept the new threat. "Positions!"

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