Chapter fifty three: time to choose

Finnick's POV 

The woman’s words hung in the wind like smoke, harsh and suffocating. They clung to my skin,pitching hard to think. Freya stood frozen, her body pale as if the earth under her feet had just vanished.

"Your love is the breaking point," the old woman pronounced. her eyes gleaming with a dark understanding. "It will either save or destroy all."

I wanted to match forward, to pull Freya back to me, to tell her that none of this was true, that we were stronger than any prophecy, that our bond was real and unbreakable. But my voice caught, silenced by the weight of her glance the sharpness in her words.

Freya was already speaking, her voice shaky but determined. "What do you mean? What does it have to do with the child? With the cub?"

The woman’s lips curled into a smile, but there was nothing caring about it. Her eyes fluttered like the blackness of a storm cloud, full of secrets and untold truths.

"The child is both your salvation and your damnation," she said softly, almost mockingly. "He is the key to what will either end this world or start a new one. The bond between you and him...." she looked pointedly at Freya, "......is what will determine which path is taken."

Freya's face went pale, and I could feel the tremble in her fingers as they curled into fists. "I don’t understand," she whispered. "How could a child, an innocent child, be the cause of such destruction?"

"Because he is no mere child," the woman replied. "He is a vessel, a tool for powers beyond your comprehension. And you....." she looked directly at me now, her voice suddenly cold, "....you, Finnick, are the one who will either temper or unleash the storm."

I flinched, stepping closer to Freya, my arm instinctively wrapping around her waist. I wanted to protect her from the weight of the woman’s words, but I knew I couldn’t. None of us could escape this.

"How do you know all of this?" Freya asked, her voice still barely a whisper. "Who are you?"

The old woman’s smile deepened, a gleam of something ancient and terrible in her eyes. "I am a keeper of fates," she said simply. "A guardian of the paths not taken, the choices not made. I see what lies ahead, what must be, and what can be avoided."

Freya’s gaze hardened. "So, you're telling me we have no choice? That everything we do, everything we’ve done, is leading us toward this....this prophecy?"

The woman’s lips parted slightly, as though savoring the question. "Oh, there is always a choice," she said. "The question is not whether you have one, but whether you will make the right one."

I felt my heart hammer in my chest as the meaning of her words settled in. The fate of the child, the future of the world....Freya and I, bound together by something deeper than love, were now the center of something far more terrifying than anything we had faced before.

The old woman’s voice dropped to a whisper. "You see, your love, your bond with each other, is the very thing that will either destroy or save this world. The child is the key, yes. But it is you, Finnick, and you, Freya, who will decide how the story ends. The boy is but a reflection of you both. His fate will be determined by what you choose to do with your own."

My pulse quickened as her words splashed over me. It wasn’t just about the c

Kid. It wasn’t just about the prophecy now. It was about us, about me and Freya 

And the terrifying discovery hit me like a cold wave.

If the wrong choice was made, if we couldn’t figure this out, everything we loved would burn.

Freya turned to me, her eyes wide, searching mine for answers I didn’t have. I could feel the fear rising in her, could see the uncertainty masking her every move. I wanted to carry her in my arms, to shield her from the weight of this moment, but I knew there was no going back. We were in this together, whether we we're ready now or not.

"So," she asked, her voice low, "what're we going to do now? Do we even have time to make a think, make a choice? Is already too late?"

The old woman spun around, her expression unreadable. "There is always time," she said. "But time is running out. The sky is stripping, the stars are dropping and the little one will grow. The moment of your choice will come sooner than you think."

I looked at Freya, and for the first time, I saw the frightening in her eyes. It wasn’t the fright of the unknown, rather of losing control and being too late.

"We can’t let that happen," I said, my voice a little more fierce than I intended to. "We're not going to let any of it happen."

Freya’s eyes softened, her soft hand reached for mine. She squeezed it tightly, as if steadying herself in me, in us. "I don’t know what this choice is," she said, her voice shaky but steady. "But I know one thing."

"Which is?"

"I'm not going to make it without you."

Her words pushed me harder than I thought. The truth in them, the hardness, the weight of the commitment left me absconded. I didn’t have all the answers__Not yet. I didn’t know how to stitch what had been torn or if there was even a way to turn this pole. But with Freya by my side, I felt a glitter of hope in the dark.

The woman watched us, her eyes unreadable, before she nodded slowly. "Then this is the time to choose" she said. "But remember, you are not just choosing for yourselves. You are choosing for the entire world."

Freya and I looked at each other for a while, one that joined everything we’d been through, everything we still had to face. The weight of it was heavy and relentless, but we weren’t alone anymore.

"Let’s go," Freya said quietly, drawing her hand from mine to move forward. "We’ll face it. Whatever comes henceforth, we’ll face it together."

I felt a surge of emotion flood through me. This..this was what we'd fought for. Not just for survival but for love. Not just the end of the storm, but the possibility of a future, in peace.

I grabbed her hand again, tightly and together, we walked toward the shadows of the Glen.

The old woman’s eyes followed us, but she didn’t flicker. She didn’t move but I could feel the heaviness of her eyes pressing down at the back of my neck.

And deep down in the very pit of my stomach, I knew that whatever lurked ahead whatever decision Freya and I had to make, it would change every single thing.

The ground shakes under our feet as we crossed the threshold of the Glen. The air was colder this time, and the tiniest sound howled in distant reaching our ears. The woman’s voice resounded behind us, one final warning: “Choose wisely, The child will soon be ready to take his place in this world or destroy it entirely.”