“Freya!” I roared. “Where are you? Papa’s here! You can come out now—Papa’s here to protect you!”
Tears streamed down my face, blinding me as I searched the shadows, kicking aside debris and calling her name again and again.
But she was nowhere to be found.
By the mighty thunder of Thor’s hammer… she was onlythree. So small. So innocent. Where could she be?
Behind me, Zara stumbled through the doorway, her face streaked with soot and tears. Her eyes locked onto the destruction, onto the bodies.
“Where is Freya?” I yelled, my voice ragged. I pointed an accusing finger at her. “This is your fault! You never listen! You should have stayed home!”
She froze.
Her body trembled as her hands rose to cover her mouth—but no sound came—just the shudder of her breath and the horror in her eyes.
Then, her arms lowered.
And something darker settled over her face.
“How can you say that, Balthazar?” Zara’s voice faltered, shaking beneath the burden of her grief. “How can you blame me when I begged you to leave with me? To find out who we are? But you—so damn stubborn—refused to listen!”
Her words spilled out like a storm.
“And now… you blame me that my children are dead?” Her voice trembled. “I love you. Gods, I love you.I only wanted one night. One last night with you. To persuade you to stay with us. And for that, for that, my babies are dead. And you stand there, pointing fingers like I lit the match myself.”
Tears poured down her cheeks as her cries echoed into the star-filled sky.
Then, between sobs, she gasped, “We need to find Freya. She might still be alive!”
I stared at her, jaw clenched, voice like stone. “I’ll search for her. You lay the others to rest. Our children would still be alive if you had stayed home.”
Zara flinched as though I’d struck her. “I left because I love you!Because I needed to see you. Because we don’t know who we are, and we can’t keep living this lie!”
I snapped.
“We’re monsters, Zara!” I roared, the fury in my chest boiling over. “We’ve been pretending to be civilized, to be human. But at our core? We’re despicable.
Her face crumpled, devastated.
And yet, I couldn’t stop.
“We lost them because of you!”
She screamed through tears, “Freya is all I have left!”
Without thinking, I shoved past her, knocking her to the ground. I didn’t look back.
Snow howled around me as I trudged through the storm, my vision blurred by tears. I called out her name—again and again—my voice raw with desperation.
Then I saw it.
A small pink shoe, barely visible, jutting from beneath a drift of snow.
My stomach twisted into a knot. A thin stream of blood trailed from it, like a scar on the earth.
Panic clawed at my throat as I fell to my knees, tearing through the snow with frantic hands. “Freya!” I cried, my breath ragged, my heart a hammer.
I followed the blood trail and heard a thunderclap in my ears with every step. My face was wet—not just from the snow, but from tears I no longer remembered crying.
