Ashes of the Omega

Mud filled her mouth.

It seeped past her cracked lips—gritty and cold, tasting of rot and copper and something else. Something older. Neriah choked and twisted onto her side, gagging. She spat out a mouthful of black-streaked bile and sucked in a breath that cut like glass down her throat.

Pain slammed into her in waves. Her skin burned. Her joints ached. Her stomach twisted with nausea, and every breath felt like a needle shoved between her ribs. Her fingers clawed into wet earth, digging desperately for something solid. But the ground pulsed under her—no, not the ground. Her heartbeat. Too loud. Too fast.

Too alive.

The realization didn’t come all at once. It unfolded, slow and awful, as she pushed herself upright on trembling arms. Her limbs barely obeyed. She looked down, expecting blood, expecting scorched flesh, the ruin of execution.

But she was whole.

Her hands were coated in filth but unbroken. Her arms were thin. Too thin. And her wrists—delicate, childlike, smeared with dirt and blood. A crude black mark sat just above her palm. Not the full Omega brand. Just the ghost of it. A half-finished thing.

Her heart stuttered.

This wasn’t her body.

No—it was, but it wasn’t the one she’d died in.

Rain fell, cold and soft, hissing on the leaves. The sky above was bruised steel, the moon high and pale. Not red. Not yet. That meant something. She didn’t know what.

Her breath came faster, sharper. Her eyes darted across the shadows of the forest, but she saw no torches, no chanting pack, no execution pyre.

She was alone.

And young.

Dread coiled low in her gut.

She stumbled forward, bare feet sliding through the mud, until she found a puddle—still and black like a shard of obsidian. She stared into it.

A child stared back.

Her face, but younger. Softer. Thirteen. Hollow-cheeked, wide-eyed, smeared in blood and ash. The same white-blonde hair matted to her skull. The same storm-grey eyes, though even they seemed smaller now. Untouched by fire.

Neriah recoiled as if struck. She staggered away from the puddle, slipped, and fell again. The mud welcomed her like a grave.

“No,” she rasped, voice raw and strange in her throat. “No, no, no—”

She remembered.

She remembered the noose. The pack’s silent faces. The way her mate—Caius—had looked at her like she was filth. The moment he’d spoken the rejection aloud, like a knife slicing marrow from bone.

She’d begged.

And he had watched her burn.

The fire hadn’t killed her immediately. It had devoured her slow. She’d screamed as her body blackened. She remembered the sound of her own flesh blistering. The smell.

And now—

She was thirteen.

Her heart thundered. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, shaking. Her thoughts spiraled, unmoored from time.

This couldn’t be real.

But the wind was real. The rain. The pain.

A flicker passed through her—low and hot beneath the skin. She flinched. It felt like her blood had just twitched.

No—burned.

Not pain. Not quite. Heat. Something alive inside her veins.

She pressed a hand to her chest and felt it again.

A second heartbeat.

Her breath caught. It wasn’t hers, not exactly. But it pulsed inside her. Then faded. Then pulsed again.

Her mouth opened, but no sound came.

Then the wind changed.

It swept through the trees with a hiss, curling between the trunks like smoke. It brushed her hair, lifted the fine hairs on her arms. The rain seemed to hush.

And in that quiet, she heard it.

A voice.

Not spoken. Not heard.

Felt.

“Neriah.”

The name struck like thunder in her skull. She gasped and spun, searching the trees. Nothing moved.

But the whisper came again.

“Elaris ven’tar Neriah. Elaris rieth.”

The words echoed in her bones—ancient, guttural, beautiful. Her knees buckled. She gripped a nearby trunk, trying to keep upright. The bark was slick and cold beneath her palms.

She didn’t understand the language. Not consciously.

But her body did.

It remembered.

A lullaby she’d never learned. A prayer from a time before her blood was bound to the pack.

“Who’s there?” she rasped.

Silence answered her.

Then—movement. Somewhere to her left. Subtle. Predatory.

She turned sharply. Her eyes scanned the shadows, muscles coiling, ready to flee. She saw nothing. But the air had changed. Thicker now. Watching.

She felt it in the way her skin crawled. She was not alone.

A glint caught her eye.

Something metallic dangled from a low branch ahead. She crept toward it, each step slow, quiet. Her footfalls didn’t make a sound on the wet ground.

The object was a pendant.

A silver wolf, curled protectively around a flame-shaped gem—ruby-red, impossibly bright. It swung gently on a black leather cord, untouched by rain.

She stared.

Her chest tightened.

It called to her.

Without thinking, she reached out and touched it.

The moment her skin met the silver—

Flame.

It wasn’t heat. It was hunger. It exploded through her veins like liquid fire, rippling outward from the pendant, through her arm, into her chest. Her back arched. Her mouth opened in a silent scream.

It was in her.

She couldn’t contain it. Her skin glowed faintly at the wrists, the neck, the chest—cracks of red light pulsing in time with the second heartbeat.

Leaves flew upward in a sudden spiral around her. The trees groaned, their bark steaming. The ground smoked beneath her knees.

And from her throat, unbidden, came a cry—

“Rieth vel’kaan!”

The words tore through the air like a blade. The wind stopped.

Silence.

Everything—leaves, trees, sky—seemed to hold its breath.

The fire inside her receded all at once, like a tide pulled back.

Neriah collapsed forward, panting, clutching the pendant in her fist. Steam rose from her skin. Her body trembled.

She looked up.

The mist had cleared.

Dozens of eyes stared back at her from the woods. Luminous. Yellow.

Wolves.

But not pack.

They were too still. Too quiet. They watched her not like prey—but like something unknown. Something dangerous.

Neriah rose to her feet, slowly, the pendant still clutched tight.

She didn’t look away.

The wolves didn’t blink.

The air between them shimmered.

And for the first time since her return, Neriah wasn’t afraid.

She was burning.

And something inside her had just woken up.