Chapter fifty: I would end the world for freya

Finnick's pov

Time slowed as the bone-wolf rose from the earth. Its body clacked with every movement, ribs twisting like branches, fire leaking between every seam of bone and those hollow, pulsing eyes, no soul in them yet they stared at Freya like they had known her in another life.

She trembled in my arms. Not from fear but recognition.

She knew this thing not as a monster.

As blood.

“My father,” she said again, softer now. “That voice…”

I held her tighter, as if my grip alone could keep death away.

“You don’t have to speak to it,” I said through clenched teeth. “It’s not him. It can’t be.”

But she didn’t look away neither did the boy.

He stood in front of us like a barrier made of light and storm, that black fang stone still pulsing in his hand.

The bone-wolf lowered its head toward him.

“Only one may carry the flame,” it said, voice hollow and echoing from everywhere at once. “The Nightborn line has awakened. The flame must choose.”

The boy didn’t speak.

Then the bone-wolf said something I will never forget.

“Kill her, and take your place.”

My blood froze , Freya stiffened.

“No,” the boy whispered.

But the bone-wolf’s voice continued. “The old gods return. The prophecy cannot be unmade. You were forged from both ruin and power. The Hollow Oath bound you. Her death unbinds it.”

“Stop,” I said. “He’s a child.”

The boy turned, eyes wide with panic. “I’m not, I didn’t ask for this!”

“I know,” I said, rising slowly, keeping Freya behind me. “You don’t have to be what they say. You’re more than a prophecy.”

The bone-wolf snarled and fire erupted around its paws immidiately.

“He was born of dusk and blood,” Liora hissed from behind the creature. “Not even you can stop what’s coming, Finnick. This was always written.”

“Screw what was written,” I growled, baring my teeth. “We’ve rewritten fate before.”

Freya dragged herself beside me, her hand gripping mine. She was pal and the wound on her chest still gleaming  but her energy was returning.

“We stand together,” she said.

And gods, I loved her for that.

Even with the world ending around us, her fingers laced into mine without hesitation. That one simple act held more power than all the ancient beasts and curses thrown at us.

“I’m sorry,” the boy said, his voice breaking. “I didn’t want this. I just wanted to belong.”

Freya moved to him, wrapping her arms around him. “You do belong, wiith us.”

For a second everything stilled, then the stars started falling.

It began as a whisper in the sky.

A single glimmer blinked out. Then another. And another.

The heavens themselves were going dark.

I looked up and saw the crack.

A jagged rift opening above us like a wound in the universe. From it, silver fire bled into the atmosphere. And with it came a sound low and ancient like the earth itself was mourning.

I turned to the boy and he was no longer shaking.

His eyes had gone completely silver.

And I saw the choice, he cross his face like a storm cloud that's terrifying, clarity when someone realizes power can’t be given back.

He stepped away from Freya, lifting the black fang-stone high.

Light exploded from it and when it faded, he had changed again.

No longer a boy.

A young man now, tall and regal, with hair that shimmered like dusk and scars glowing across his arms like starlight tattoos.

“The stars are dying,” he said quietly. “It’s because of me.”

“No,” Freya said, reaching out. “It’s because others want to use you. That doesn’t mean you become them.”

He stared at her for a long time.

Then looked to me.

“You’d still stand by her?” he asked. “Even if it meant ending the world?”

I didn’t hesitate. “I’d end the world to protect her.”

Freya gave me a look then a small, aching smile filled with something so fierce and full it nearly broke me.

“Then you’re both fools,” Liora said, stepping forward.

She raised her arms and the forest roared.

Vines snapped and surged from the ground, twisting toward the boy.

The bone-wolf charged forward, its mouth open with flame ready to consume.

And that’s when everything exploded into chaos and  I shifted midair.

Fur, Claws and Snarl.

I met the bone-wolf head-on, crashing into its flaming jaw, rolling us into the earth. My teeth sank into bone and fire. I didn’t care if it burned me, I welcomed it.

The creature threw me back but I landed on all fours.

Freya shouted my name and then light surged behind me.

The boy had thrown the fang into the air, where it hovered, spinning. His hands raised, calling power like a storm.

The stars above us stopped falling.

Paused_Waiting.

Freya stepped beside him, bloody and breathless.

“If you choose peace” she said “the stars will stay.”

Liora screamed. “And if he chooses war, he becomes eternal.”

“I don’t want forever,” the boy said. “I just want to be free.”

“Then choose!” the bone-wolf roared.

The fang dropped and fell toward the altar.

Toward finality, i didn’t breathe neither did Freya. The moment the fang struck the stonelight shattered the sky.

A howl unlike anything we’d ever heard tore across the world. When I opened my eyes, everything was silent.

The boy stood alone now, the fang gone.

His form flickered back to a child, then a teen, then back again__unstable and trembling.

Freya stepped forward slowly.

“What did you choose?”

He looked at her, tears filled his glowing eyes.

“I chose you,” he whispered.

And then he fell, not asleep and not dead.

Just… vanished like starlight swallowed by dawn.

Freya collapsed to her knees, empty arms grasping the air.

And I…

I knelt beside her, held her and kissed her forehead, her hair and her scar.

We stayed there, in the ruins of what might’ve been the end, holding onto each other like that was the only thing that had ever mattered.

And maybe it was.

But far above us, in the torn sky, a new constellation flickered into view one shaped like a fang… and it opened its eyes.