I stare down at the Crimson Seal, the glow inside it flaring now, the pulse syncing with mine, louder now, like it senses the shift in the room, like it feels the air thickening with something too close to purpose.
“You really believe in this,” I say, watching her.
“No,” she replies, and then smiles. “I believe in you.”
She kisses me then, slow and aching and deep, not desperate, not urgent, but patient, like she’s willing to wait through the storm as long as I come back to her. I pull her closer, hand at the small of her back, fingers splayed against her spine, holding her like I might disappear if I let go.
When we break apart, I press the Seal to my chest and whisper the name I haven’t said in years. “Roan,” I murmur. “I’m not done.”
I feel the bear quiet inside me—not because it’s chained or I’m forcing it down, but because it’s listening.
It remembers too.
20
ANGIE
The fishing village isn’t even marked on my map. It’s just a scattering of sloped rooftops buried in snow, flanked by rusted docks and the steady hush of the sea slapping against the shore like an old, familiar lullaby. Smoke drifts lazily from stone chimneys, curling into the pale gray morning like secrets rising into the clouds, and everything here feels held together by silence and salt and time. It’s the kind of place that doesn’t get visitors, not because it can’t, but because it chooses not to.
Cassian walks beside me, heavy coat drawn tight, shoulders set in that braced way I’ve started to recognize—like he’s expecting the worst and already making peace with how little it’ll move him when it lands. He hasn’t said a word since we left the ridge, just handed me a pair of mittens with the tags still on and pointed toward the nearest slope with a path beaten down by boots, not wheels. I think he knew before I did that this place would be waiting with a verdict.
We step into the main lane, and the quiet hits sharper than the wind. People turn. Slowly. Deliberately. A group of older women, wrapped in wool shawls and layers worn thin by winters longer than I’ve been alive, stand outside a narrow red buildingwith a hand-painted fish sign swinging above the door. They stop talking when they see him. One lifts her hand, fingers splaying out like she might cross herself or shield her eyes. I can’t tell which.
Cassian stiffens but doesn’t stop walking. Doesn’t acknowledge them. Doesn’t look back.
That tells me everything.
We pass a man stacking crates by the dock, cigarette hanging from his mouth, eyes narrowed as he tracks our every step. A teenage girl pushing a sled full of kindling glances up, and something in her expression—half-curiosity, half-fear—makes my stomach knot.
The whispers don’t start until we’re nearly to the small store at the end of the row, the one with boards nailed over a cracked window and a faded neon sign humming faintly behind frost. I don’t need to speak Norwegian to understand what they’re saying. Words like "ghost" and "beast" don’t change much from one language to another.
I pause, turn slowly, and that’s when I hear it clear as day from one of the old women by the fish shop.
“He’s the one,” she says in a tone so quiet it still cuts through the air like glass. “The one from the fire. The one who tore the village apart.”
Cassian doesn’t flinch, but I feel the shift in him. The way he stops breathing for half a second, like the weight of that memory presses harder than the cold ever could. He turns slightly, just enough for me to see his jaw clench, his eyes fixed on the snow at his boots, his silence growing heavier by the second.
That’s not going to work for me.
I step forward, straightening my spine, lifting my chin, and raising my voice loud enough to reach them all without sounding like I’m shouting. Just clear. Just sure.
“You don’t know him.”
The words ripple through the air, drawing every eye back to me, even Cassian’s, though he doesn’t say a word.
“You think you do,” I continue, voice shaking a little but still loud, “because of something you heard. Something somebody’s grandmother whispered to somebody’s cousin thirty years ago. But I’ve seen him. I’ve stood beside him when he could’ve turned to rage and didn’t. I’ve watched him protect people who didn’t deserve it and carry wounds so deep most people would’ve let themselves rot from the inside just to forget. And if you think that man is a monster, then you don’t know what real monsters look like.”
A boy in the doorway of a nearby house ducks inside like he’s afraid I’m going to spit fire next. Good. Let them be afraid of the right person for once.
Cassian doesn’t stop me. Doesn’t grab my arm or tell me to leave it alone. He just watches, and for a man who can face down wolves and soldiers and shadows without blinking, there’s something in his eyes now that undoes me. Not fear. Not even shame. Just that stunned, raw stillness that says he didn’t expect to be defended. Not by me. Not by anyone.
The woman who spoke first takes a small step forward, her shawl flapping slightly in the wind. She’s got the kind of face that’s carved by time and weather and grief. Her eyes are pale blue, almost milky, and they pin me in place like nails.
“You speak with fire,” she says softly, and her accent folds over the words like linen, rough and clean. “But fire burns, girl. It doesn’t heal.”
I breathe in, and it tastes like brine and ash and something older. “Sometimes it does both.”
She watches me for a long moment, then nods once. Sharp, reluctant. She doesn’t forgive. Doesn’t welcome. But she understands. And that, I’ll take.
