Page 56

CHAPTER 56

POV: Briar

I don't see them coming.

One moment I'm on the throne issuing orders, Flora at my right hand organizing our defenses, Mira at my left despite her swollen belly creating ice flowers that strengthen our protective barriers. The next, something punches through the ceiling—a wave of spring-green magic that tears through our protections like a blacksmith's hammer shattering brittle iron.

The throne room erupts into chaos. Our carefully constructed frost barriers melt into useless puddles, releasing the scent of winter magic dying. Loyal omegas scatter, their defensive formation shattering as quickly as our plans. Flora screams something I can't hear over the shriek of winter ice giving way beneath foreign magic.

They drop from the ceiling in perfect formation—six masked figures draped in Spring Court colors, moving with the synchronized precision of hunters who've stalked these halls for centuries. Not the chaotic assault we just escaped, but something calculated and focused. A second attempt, deliberately planned after the first failure.

For me.

I raise my hands, Wild Magic surging beneath my skin like a winter river breaking free of ice. But before frost can form at my fingertips, one of them hurls something that catches light as it spins through the air—a web of gleaming metal that expands in mid-flight, malevolence woven into every strand. The net falls over me, iron fibers burning where they touch my skin like brands pressed into exposed flesh. My magic dies instantly, severed like a vein cut clean through. The cillae across my skin dim to nearly invisible, their power extinguished beneath the iron's cruel bite.

"What the—" My words choke off as the net tightens, iron fibers digging into frost-marked flesh, carving channels of fire along pathways meant for ice.

"Iron weave," Flora shouts across the chamber, horror in her voice. "It suppresses fae magic—don't let it touch your skin!"

Too late. Two hunters converge on me while I'm entangled, their movements swift and practiced as wolves taking down winter-starved prey. One grabs my arms, twisting them behind my back with cold efficiency. The second produces a collar of woven iron and silver that radiates wrongness like the stench of death. My stomach heaves just looking at it—the kind of magic designed to silence what we've awakened, to bind what we've fought to free.

"The breeder is secured," the first hunter announces, voice dead as winter-starved soil. "Take her to the sacred chamber."

The word 'breeder' lands like a slap. After everything—all the fighting, all the awakening, all the transformation—they still see me as nothing but a vessel. Not a person. Not even an omega. Just a container for power they want to control.

"No!" Mira lunges toward us, frost magic swirling around her hands, her pregnant belly not slowing her desperate charge. "Leave her alone!"

The hunter barely glances at her before a flick of his wrist sends her flying across the throne room. The sound of her body hitting the wall turns my blood to ice—the dull thud of another pregnant omega, another of my charges, broken against stone.

"Mira!" I thrash against the burning iron, my skin blistering wherever the fibers dig deeper. The four little ones respond to my rage with violent movement, their distinct magical signatures pulsing desperately beneath my skin. I feel their panic, their confusion as the iron smothers my own power while they burn brighter within.

The collar closes around my throat with a sound like a grave being sealed. The moment it locks, wrongness floods my system—not just pain, but violation so deep it reaches past flesh into spirit. My body suddenly feels alien, ill-fitting, like wearing a stranger's skin sewn poorly onto my bones.

"She's bound," the hunter reports, fingers digging into my arms as he hauls me upright. "Taking her to the chamber now."

The sacred chamber. Words that drip with sick irony. They've prepared a place to carve my babies from me before they're ready to be born. To butcher what should be birth.

I stare into the shadowed face behind the mask, seeing nothing but calculated indifference. "You'll regret this," I tell him, my voice steady despite the iron burning into my throat. "What's awakened won't be silenced again."

The hunter securing my arms twists them higher, sending white-hot pain through my shoulders. "Wild Magic is precisely why we're taking you, omega. That power has no place in our ordered world."

"The Courts require you alive," the other adds, his tone almost gentle despite his cruelty. "Your vessels too. Submit, and the extraction will hurt less."

Vessels. Not children, not babes. Not even offspring. Vessels—as if the four lives growing inside me are nothing but containers for power to be harvested.

Around us, the throne room has become a battlefield. The loyal omegas fight with the ferocity of the long-oppressed finally tasting freedom. Frost explodes from untrained hands, ice spikes erupting from floors and walls in jagged, deadly beauty. One omega—a kitchen maid whose name I don't even know—impales a hunter on a jagged spear of ice before another cuts her down, her throat opened with casual precision.

It's not enough. For every blow our side lands, the hunters return three. Their movements flow with the deadly precision of centuries spent honing their craft while ours stumble with the awkward newness of freshly awakened power.

"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."

"You mean stolen," I growl, cillae flickering weakly beneath iron's constraint. "Ripped away so they can't threaten your precious control."

"So they cannot destroy what maintains peace between realms," she corrects, pressing cold hands against my swollen belly. Where once I'd have welcome a healer's touch, now I recoil as if burned. "Wild Magic is too dangerous to exist without proper channels."

As her hands touch me, the collar tightens viciously, constricting like a noose. Something twists inside me—not labor but violation, foreign magic attempting to reshape what should unfold naturally. The four little ones thrash in protest, their distinct signatures becoming erratic, frightened. I feel their panic as if it's my own, multiplied fourfold in my blood.

I arch against the restraints, iron burning deeper into frost-marked flesh. "Stop! You're killing them!"

"The discomfort is temporary," Elder Iris says, increasing pressure until I taste blood from biting my tongue. "The vessels will stabilize once separated from your corrupting influence."

Through our claiming bond, I feel Cadeyrn's sudden, razor-sharp focus—his attention cutting through battle chaos as he finally registers my agony. His rage explodes through our connection, cillae responding to his fury even across distance. He's coming. But the palace is vast, the sacred chamber hidden, and time running short as crimson moonlight inches closer to center.

The pressure increases as Elder Iris forces foreign magic deeper. Something tears inside me—not physical but magical, boundaries breached that should remain inviolate. The four little ones respond with increasingly desperate movements, their magic fluctuating wildly as it fights invasion. I feel them reaching for each other, for me, for anything familiar in this storm of foreign power.

"Stop this!" Wren suddenly shouts, shoving herself between us with unexpected force. "The vessels show critical distress. These methods will kill them!"

Elder Iris pauses, irritation flashing across her face. "You forget yourself, midwife. Step back and allow me to continue."

"I cannot," Wren replies, placing protective hands over my belly. "My oath binds me to preserve life first. This approach guarantees death."

The hunters shift, metal scraping against stone as they register this unexpected resistance. Elder Iris's mask of serenity cracks, revealing something ancient and terrible beneath.

"Then you have outlived your purpose," she states, green magic gathering at her fingertips like poisonous vines. "Guards, remove her."

Two hunters move toward Wren, iron nets at the ready. She doesn't resist, accepting her fate with the bitter resignation of one who's made countless impossible choices.

"Wait," I call out, mind racing for any delay, any chance for Cadeyrn to reach us. "She's right. Even your court needs live children, not dead ones. We can find another way."

Something shifts beneath my skin—a subtle change in pressure, in magical resonance. The collar around my neck grows unexpectedly warm, then hot, the iron beginning to glow red against my throat.

The four little ones respond to my desperation with synchronized magic, four distinct signatures merging into something beyond their individual power. Despite iron's suppression, despite the collar's bindings, Wild Magic surfaces—responding not to technique but to primal need.

A hot spasm rolls through my lower body, tightening my belly into a band of solid muscle. My breath catches as recognition dawns—not the magic violation from Elder Iris, but something natural, something right.

The first contraction hits without warning—a wave of pain so intense my vision whites out. Not artificial acceleration but genuine labor, triggered by danger and desperation. My water breaks in a rush, steaming where it touches the rune-carved stone beneath me.

"She's entering labor!" Wren announces, professional instinct overriding fear. "The extraction attempt has triggered natural birth!"

Elder Iris's perfect composure shatters. "Impossible. The iron should suppress all magical responses, particularly from impure hybrids."

"The little ones come whether you will it or not," Wren insists, moving protectively closer. "Their magic responds to threat. You cannot stop what grows in strength with every beat of her heart."

Another contraction tears through me, stronger than the first. The collar around my neck starts to soften, iron losing cohesion as it heats beyond its melting point. The four little ones' combined magic fights against suppression—cillae reappearing across my skin as their power channels through me.

"Accelerate the extraction," Elder Iris commands, green magic intensifying around her hands until they glow with sickly light. "Before the Wild Magic fully awakens."

She presses harder, foreign magic battling against my body's natural rhythms. The pressure builds unbearably—magical, physical, emotional—as forced extraction fights against natural birth.

I reach for Cadeyrn through our bond, pushing past iron's interference with all my strength. Labor has begun. The sacred chamber. Hurry.

His response surges like a tide—rage and determination and something deeper, more primal. The instinct of an alpha fighting to reach his mate in labor. Distance still separates us, but his focus cuts through magical barriers like a blade through flesh.

Another contraction grips me, violent enough to arch my spine against stone. The four little ones' magic flares in response, cillae spreading from my skin to the table. The carved symbols crack, ancient markings shattering as Wild Magic pushes against court control.

"The binding fails!" a hunter shouts, backing away as frost crawls across the floor like living vines. "Her magic returns!"

Elder Iris abandons all pretense of serenity, spring magic gathering around her in verdant waves. "Hold her down! We must complete extraction before?—"

The collar melts completely, liquid iron running down my neck and chest, leaving burn trails that immediately freeze as cillae resurge. Wild Magic explodes from me in a wave that shatters the remaining suppression, ice splintering outward in a blast that sends hunters staggering back.

The iron manacles around my wrists and ankles weaken but don't break entirely. I strain against them as another contraction builds, the four little ones responding to my panic with erratic magical pulses. Frost spirals across the chamber in chaotic patterns, black walls cracking beneath the pressure of uncontrolled Wild Magic.

"Extract them now!" Elder Iris commands, maintaining her spell against the surging magic. "Before she breaks free!"

Two hunters converge on me, iron nets raised. I channel the four little ones' power through my half-free hands, barely conscious of what I'm creating. Ice erupts from my fingertips—not with winter's precise geometry but with feral, untamed force—forming a jagged spear that pierces the first hunter's throat. His blood freezes before it can fall, suspended in crimson droplets that hang in the air like morbid jewels.

The second hunter hesitates, reassessing the threat I present despite my restrained position. That moment of indecision costs him everything as frost crawls up his legs, encasing him in ice that cracks with the sound of breaking bones.

"Enough playing at cooperation," Elder Iris snarls, her gentle mask discarded completely. Vines growing from her hair coil and writhe like agitated snakes. "If we cannot control this birth, more direct measures become necessary."

Green energy gathers around her hands—not growth magic but its perversion, designed to wither rather than nurture. Death disguised as natural order. I recognize the pattern from court execution rituals—magic that desiccates from within, turning living tissue to dust.

Another contraction coincides with her attack, pain and fear triggering instinctive defense. Wild Magic erupts from me in a form I've never created before—a swirling vortex incorporating all four seasonal powers in perfect, primal balance. Winter's ice, spring's growth, summer's fire, autumn's decay—not separated as the courts divide them, but interwoven as they were meant to be.

Our magics collide with a sound like the world breaking. Her attack shatters against my raw defense, green energy dissolving into the more powerful Wild Magic that courses through me and my unborn children.

Elder Iris retreats, genuine terror contorting her perfect features. "What are you becoming?"

I manage a smile through the grip of another contraction. "What I was always meant to be. What the courts spent centuries trying to breed out of us."

I pour every ounce of remaining strength into breaking the weakened manacles, Wild Magic responding to desperate need rather than controlled direction. The iron finally gives way, freeing my limbs as I roll from the table onto unsteady feet.

Elder Iris backs away, green magic gathering for another attack. The remaining hunters form a barrier between us, iron nets raised.

"You cannot escape," she warns, her voice steadier than her trembling hands. "The palace is overrun. Your prince fights a losing battle above. This chamber remains the only place these vessels might survive birth."

Through our bond, I feel Cadeyrn's struggle to reach me—fighting through overwhelming forces, his determination blazing like a beacon. But distance and enemies still separate us, and the contractions come faster now, the four little ones responding to danger by hastening their arrival.

Wren steps to my side, her professional instinct overcoming fear. "The first little one descends," she whispers, steadying me as another contraction hits. "Birth waits for no one, court plans or otherwise."

I stagger backward, one hand pressed against my belly where four lives prepare to enter a world that tried to prevent their existence. No time to reach the throne room. No chance of accessing its ancient protection before labor progresses too far.

I press against the chamber's far wall, Wild Magic swirling in protective currents around us. Frost spiderwebs across the floor with each step, spreading in patterns that pulse with the combined rhythms of four distinct magical signatures—fire, earth, air, water.

"I don't need to escape," I tell Elder Iris, bracing against the wall as another contraction builds. "The Wild Magic makes its own path."

As if responding to my words, the black stone behind me shifts—not cracking but flowing like water, creating an opening where solid wall stood moments before. The palace itself, awakened by our transformations, responds not to court commands but to primal need.

"Impossible," Elder Iris breathes, watching centuries-old architecture remake itself. "These chambers were designed to contain Wild Magic, not channel it."

"They were built when Wild Magic still flowed freely," I counter, backing toward the newly formed passage. "Before the courts forgot what true balance feels like."

Another contraction hits, driving me to my knees. The four little ones' magic flares in response, cillae across my skin brightening until they're painful to look at. Through our bond, I feel Cadeyrn's renewed determination as he senses my movement through the palace depths.

"After her!" Elder Iris commands, green magic gathering around her hands. "She must not reach the throne room!"

I turn and flee through the opening, Wren close behind me. The passage seals itself as we pass, stone flowing like liquid to cut off pursuit. Ancient corridors illuminate with our passage, cillae across my skin aligning with those etched into the walls millennia ago.

The palace guides us upward, creating the shortest path toward the throne room. But labor progresses relentlessly, contractions coming faster, the first babe—the one whose magic burns like forge fire—moving inexorably downward with each painful step.

"We must hurry," I gasp to Wren between waves of pain. "I need to reach the throne before the first little one comes."

Through our claiming bond, I reach once more for Cadeyrn, pushing past distance with desperate need. Hurry. The babes come soon. I try for the throne room.

His response comes as fierce determination tinged with something new—pain? His presence in our bond suddenly wavers, his signature flickering like a flame in high wind.

Then nothing.

The bond goes silent. Not stretched thin, not muffled, but completely, terrifyingly absent. As if severed with a single stroke.

I stumble to a halt, a new agony worse than any contraction tearing through me. This pain has no location, no rhythm—it's everywhere, nowhere, shredding me from inside out.

"What is it?" Wren asks, steadying me with concern.

"Cadeyrn," I whisper, clawing desperately at emptiness where our bond should pulse. My fingers find only my own skin, the cillae dimming as if in mourning. "He's gone. The bond is silent."

Understanding darkens her eyes. "Perhaps only wounded," she offers without conviction. We both know what a severed bond means.

Dead. My mate is dead.

The truth hits me like a hammer blow to the chest, stealing breath more effectively than any contraction. My legs give way completely, knees striking stone with bone-jarring force I barely feel through the greater pain. A scream builds in my throat—not of physical agony but soul-deep loss—escaping as a sound barely human.

Wild Magic responds to my grief, exploding from my skin in violent, chaotic bursts. Ice erupts across walls and ceiling, forming jagged spikes that mirror the shattered pieces of my heart. The corridor fills with swirling frost as my control shatters completely.

The four little ones within me respond to their father's absence with frantic movement, magical signatures flaring in panic. The first babe—the fire child, whose signature pulses like forge flames—moves lower still, preparing to enter a world where one parent already lies cold.

I curl forward, arms wrapped around my belly as sobs tear through me. Cadeyrn. Gone. The bond that formed between us in the forest, strengthened through claiming after claiming, deepened through transformation and shared purpose—now just empty space. A wound that will never heal.

I think of him standing beside me before the winter throne, defying centuries of court tradition. Of cool hands touching my belly with reverence. Of ice-blue eyes warming with emotions a Winter Prince should never feel. All gone now, taken by enemies who feared what we were becoming together.

"We must move," Wren urges, kneeling beside me. "Your little ones still live. They still need their mother."

She's right. Practical. Focused on what remains rather than what's lost. The midwife's perspective—new life takes precedence over death, always.

I force myself upright, one hand braced against the wall, the other cradling my belly where the four little ones' magic continues to pulse despite everything. The way forward seems impossibly long, each step a battle against both physical labor and crushing grief.

But I move anyway, because that's what survival has always meant—continuing forward when curling up to die seems the only rational option. One foot before the other. One breath after the next. One heartbeat following another though each feels like betrayal of the one who no longer breathes.

"The throne room," I tell Wren, voice raw from screaming. "We need to reach it before the first little one comes."

The corridors blur together as we move, each step guided more by magic than sense. The palace creates a path for us—walls opening, staircases shortening, stone floors warming beneath my bare feet. It recognizes us not as intruders but as something older, more primal than the court that claimed ownership.

"Your wolf pup is engaged," Wren informs me after examining my progress during a brief pause. "Fire magic. First borns often carry the element of destruction and renewal."

My first tears. Our first. The thought brings fresh pain, grief nearly overwhelming the building contraction. How can these little ones enter the world without their father? How can I do this alone?

You're not alone, something whispers through the stones beneath my feet. The palace itself, speaking without words. We are with you.

"More court hunters behind us," Wren warns, glancing back. "The Elder has found another path."

No time to rest. No time to mourn. Only forward motion, each step bringing us closer to the throne room and whatever slim protection it might offer. The contractions come relentlessly now, barely a minute apart. The fire-child presses downward with each wave, eager to meet the world that tried to prevent their existence.

I stumble to my knees as particularly brutal contraction hits, a scream tearing from my throat that's equal parts physical pain and soul-deep grief. Without the bond, without Cadeyrn's strength flowing into mine, the labor feels impossibly harder, as if my body recognizes what's missing.

"Almost there," Wren encourages, helping me up. "I can see the throne room doors ahead."

Through tear-blurred vision, I make out the massive ice doors carved with ancient symbols—the same patterns that now mark my skin. The doors stand slightly ajar, frost pouring from the opening like fog across the floor. Voices drift from within—the sounds of combat, of magic striking magic.

"Someone's already there," I gasp, leaning heavily on Wren. "The hunters may have beaten us."

"No choice but forward," she replies, her arm steady around my waist. "Your first babe comes now, regardless of who waits."

She's right. I feel the fire-child moving inexorably downward, responding to my body's commands despite grief and fear. Ignoring the pain, ignoring the emptiness where the bond should be, I force myself toward those doors.

We're ten paces away when shapes emerge from a side corridor—three more court hunters, their masked faces turning toward us with predatory focus.

"The breeder escapes," one calls, lifting an iron net. "Secure her before the vessels arrive!"

Instinct takes over. With the last of my strength, I reach for Wild Magic, expecting nothing with the bond severed, with grief hollowing me. Instead, I find the four little ones' magic waiting, ready to protect themselves and their mother.

Frost explodes from my hands not in delicate patterns but in raw, jagged shards. The first hunter falls, impaled through the chest. The second staggers back, leg encased in ice. The third reaches me just as another contraction hits, his hands closing around my throat.

"Submit, omega," he hisses, iron-laced gloves burning against my skin. "The courts decide what lives and dies."

"No," I choke out, the word barely audible. "We do."

Wren strikes with unexpected speed, driving a surgical blade into the hunter's eye. He falls with a strangled scream, hands clutching at his face. She doesn't pause, doesn't hesitate—just puts her shoulder under my arm and carries me forward.

"The doors," she urges, strain showing in her voice. "We need to reach the throne."

Five paces. Four. Three. A contraction drops me to my knees again, this one accompanied by unmistakable pressure. The fire-child comes now, waiting for no one and nothing.

"I can't—" My voice breaks as my body demands I push. "They're coming now."

"The throne," Wren insists, her voice firm. "Just a few more steps. I'll help you."

With strength I didn't know I possessed, I drag myself forward. Two paces. One. My hand touches the throne room door just as the pressure becomes unbearable. I push with both body and magic, a scream tearing from my throat that's as much grief as pain.

The doors swing open, revealing chaos beyond. The throne room has become a battlefield—loyal omegas fighting court hunters, frost magic against iron weapons. In the center, upon the transformed throne, Flora directs the defense, her violet eyes widening in shock as she sees me.

"Briar!" she calls, leaving her position to rush forward. "The prince?—"

"I know," I cut her off, unable to hear the words that would confirm what the severed bond already tells me. "The little ones come now."

Understanding passes across her face. Without hesitation, she barks orders to the nearest omegas, who immediately form a protective circle around us. "To the throne," she commands. "It's our only chance."

My vision narrows to the path before me—the distance between the door and the winter throne that seems impossibly far. Another contraction grips me, stronger than any before, the pressure now constant.