Chapter 22

Freya 

   I didn’t tell anyone what was in the letter. Not Mira, not Caden and not even Eliza beyond the pieces she had already felt through the broken remains of the bond.

Some things needed silence before they could become decisions and this one was a part of them. 

I tried and failed to distract myself, and because with each passing second, my mind kept on circling back to the letter, I walked.

I spent the entire next day moving through Thornfield like I was learning the shape of it all over again. The paths had become familiar enough now that my feet knew where to go without thought. I went past the outer cabins, along the fence line, and through the narrow trail behind the storage sheds where the ground dipped slightly before rising again toward the western ridge.

I even walked the same perimeter Caden had shown me in the dark nights ago. Only this time, I wasn’t memorizing escape routes, I was thinking.

The air smelled like thawing earth and wet bark, the cold season slowly loosening its grip on the world. Thin sunlight filtered through the trees in pale streaks, and somewhere nearby I could hear the dull rhythm of an axe splitting wood.

My hand drifted unconsciously toward the inside pocket of my coat. The letter was still there.

It was heavy, but not physically. Ragnar’s words had lodged themselves somewhere deep inside me, somewhere difficult to reach and even harder to ignore.

“He finally stopped lying.” Eliza’s voice echoed quietly through me again.

He didn't say he loved us and Eliza wasn't clamouring that we went back to him either. She was just telling me that he'd decided to say the truth and the distinction mattered.

I rounded the northern fence line sometime near midday and spotted Mira carrying a basket toward the main hall. Her eyes found me immediately.

She took one look at my face and understood something had shifted, but she didn’t ask questions.

She simply nodded once at me as she passed and it was strangely comforting.

Later, I caught sight of Caden near the water barrels in the center yard. He looked up as I crossed the open space, and for a brief second, I thought he might walk over.

Instead, his gaze lingered on me thoughtfully before he returned to what he was doing.

Space. He was giving me space and the realization settled warmly in my chest.

Even Helga noticed. I saw her watching me from the doorway of the food store sometime in the afternoon, arms crossed over her chest with that sharp eyed expression she wore when she was pretending not to pay attention to people.

Our eyes met briefly, then she disappeared back inside without a word. They all knew, not the contents of the letter. But they knew I was thinking, and thinking, real thinking, required room to breathe.

By the time the sun began lowering behind the trees, I had circled nearly the entire settlement twice, and somewhere between one step and the next, the pieces inside me finally settled into place.

I stopped walking near the western ridge where the fence overlooked the downward slope beyond the settlement. The wind moved cold through my hair, carrying the scent of pine and distant smoke.

“You’ve decided.” Eliza lifted her head inside me quietly.

“Yes.” The answer came easily now. It was as clear as day and I stared out at the fading horizon and let myself say the first truth plainly. “I’m not going back to Thorne.”

The words landed inside me with surprising calm and finality. 

I would rather disappear into Thornfield forever than spend another day inside that pack pretending control was love and obedience was safety.

I was done being handled, done being managed carefully like something valuable and inconvenient at the same time and done letting men decide what my silence meant.

Eliza’s approval moved low and steady beneath my ribs.

Good.

But the second truth was harder, because Ragnar complicated things now. The letter had seen to that.

“I’m not going to him either,” I closed my eyes briefly against the wind as I whispered.

The ache in my chest sharpened faintly at the thought of him alone in that palace, carrying guilt that had finally become unbearable enough to confess.

Part of me wanted to go to him and that was the dangerous part, because if I ran to Ragnar now, then nothing had truly changed.

I would still be what I had always been, a woman surviving by attaching herself to the nearest powerful man.

First my father, then Thorne, then Ragnar. The shape and person changed, but the dependency didn’t, and suddenly I understood with terrifying clarity that I was more afraid of becoming that woman again than I was of the council itself.

“No,” I said aloud this time and the wind carried the word away. “I’m done with that version of me.”

My pulse steadied slowly beneath my skin as the real shape of my decision unfolded fully in my mind.

I was going to the capital, but not for Thorne, and not for Ragnar.

For me.

The realization hit with such force that I actually inhaled sharply.

I was going to walk into the council chambers myself before either of them could position me on the board like a piece they owned.

I would stand in front of every person who had spent years speaking about me behind closed doors and force them to look directly at what they had created.

Not Thorne’s luna, not Ragnar’s rejected mate, but a woman carrying ancient blood they had feared enough to seal.

A wolf they had tried to bury before she ever had the chance to exist fully.

A child growing inside me that half the kingdom had already turned into prophecy and inheritance and strategy before it had even drawn breath.

They were going to hear my voice before they heard anyone else’s version of me ever again.

The thought should have terrified me.

Instead, it made something fierce and steady unfurl slowly inside my chest, and for the first time in my life, the future in front of me did not feel like a cage someone else had built. It felt like something waiting for me to step toward it willingly.