Chapter forty eight: peace we thought we finally earned

Finnick pov

I’ve never felt more useless in my life. Freya stood between the cub and the being of smoke and light, blood still dripping from that cursed mark on her chest. And I couldn’t move, my legs were locked, frozen like the earth around us. I wanted to fight, shift or run but nothing in me responded.

Then the cub looked at her and spoke in his voice.

Veyrix.

That voice haunted me., it haunted her and now, it came from the mouth of the cub we’d protected, fed and named.

My fists clenched. I felt like the whole world was spiraling again, back into darkness. We had defeated Veyrix. Freya had survived and we earned peace.

But peace was a lie.

The creature no, the thing that stepped from the broken sky hadn’t moved since it spoke. It didn’t have eyes, but I could feel it staring. Like it was peeling back every piece of me and seeing what was left.

Freya’s stance was shaking. I knew she was tired. Her magic burned her from the inside out every time she used it. She wouldn’t last long like this.

So I forced myself forward, one step, then another. I touched her shoulder gently, and she flinched but didn’t push me away.

“I’m here,” I whispered.

She nodded once. “We need to leave.”

“We won’t outrun it.”

“No,” the cub said, his voice no longer Veyrix’s, but something new again, young and Afraid. “But we can outsmart it.”

The creature tilted its head again. “Run, if you must. It will not matter, the child belongs to the bloodline. To the oath.”

“What oath?” I asked, stepping in front of Freya now. “What does that mean?”

It raised its hand and the world dimmed.

I blinked, and we were somewhere else.

Not physically. A vision like a memory pouring into my skull, I gasped as it hit me.

We stood in a forest of silver trees. The air shimmered. A younger version of Freya so much like her, but not quite stood before a council of wolves. They weren’t like us. They were older, ancient, nightfangs, with markings glowing on their bodies.

A woman stepped forward. Her hair was wild with vines and silver, and her eyes were golden. She looked just like…

“Freya?” I breathed.

But it wasn’t her.

“My name is Liora,” the woman in the vision said. “And I break the oath.”

The vision shattered as cold air returned and the creature vanished with it.

And the cub collapsed.

“Freya, catch him!” I shouted.

She was already moving, scooping him up in her arms, holding him close like he might slip away. His glow dimmed.

“What was that?” I asked. “What did it show us?”

“My grandmother,” Freya said, her voice hollow. “Liora. She broke the oath… and I’m the result.”

The cub stirred. “She’s still alive.”

“What?” we both said at once.

“She took me,” the cub whispered. “Before. When you weren’t watching. She pulled me into the trees. She said she made you. Said you were never supposed to live. She’s waiting for you now.”

Freya’s hands shook. “Where?”

The cub raised a glowing paw, pointing east. “Where the trees have no name.”

I knew that place. We all did.

The Shadowroot Wilds,  no one returned from there. No maps showed the way, no pack dared step inside.

But I looked at Freya and saw it in her eyes.

She would go and I would follow

We traveled all night. The cub rode on my back, too weak to walk but freya barely spoke. She was lost in her own storm.

I kept thinking about what that creature said.

The child belongs to the oath.

What oath?

What did Liora break that was so dangerous it cursed her bloodline?

When the trees thickened and the light began to bend, I knew we were close. The forest here didn’t look natural. The bark was dark and smooth. No birds sang and no wind moved.

“We’re here,” Freya said softly.

She didn’t wait. She stepped into the darkness.

I followed.

The moment we crossed the threshold, everything changed. The air thickened. It was like walking through water. My fur bristled even in human form. Freya winced every few steps her mark bleeding again, slowly this time, like it was mourning.

Then a voice echoed around us.

“You came.”

It was smooth, layered, and full of time.

And then she stepped out.

Liora.

Her hair was longer than Freya’s, streaked with vines and silver light. Her eyes glowed like moons. She wore a cloak made of ivy and old feathers, and the moment I saw her, I felt the weight of her power press down on me like gravity.

Freya didn’t move.

“Why?” she asked. “Why did you curse me?”

Liora smiled, but it wasn’t kind. “I didn’t curse you, child. I protected you. I gave you life when no life should’ve bloomed.”

“You told the cub I wasn’t supposed to exist.”

“Because you weren’t,” she said calmly. “You were born of a broken promise. A Nightfang was never meant to mate with a Godwolf.”

I stared. “That’s what this is about?”

“Not just that,” Liora said, her eyes shifting to me. “You, boy. You carry the soul of the one who started this. The one who ended the Nightfang line.”

I froze.

“You mean Veyrix?” I asked.

She nodded.

“You think I’m him?”

“You carry his echo. His guilt. His choice,” she said.

Freya stepped forward. “Enough. You said I could choose. So I’m choosing.”

Liora tilted her head. “Are you?”

“I won’t die mortal. I won’t become something ancient either. I’m not letting fate decide who I am. I’m choosing him ” she looked at the cub “and whatever that brings.”

Liora laughed, not so kindly and not so cruelly but in that way people do when they know something you don’t.

“You think you’re free. But the blood remembers, Freya and so does the fire.”

She stepped forward and placed a finger on the cub’s forehead.

“See for yourself.”

And then fire swallowed the forest.

I screamed.

But when I opened my eyes, we were no longer in the woods.

We stood in a ruined city, ash falling like snow. Wolves lay broken across cracked stone. A banner, my banner__ burned in the distance.

Freya turned to me.

The cub had grown again. He was a boy now. Maybe twelve, his eyes burned with stars.

And behind him stood an army, an army of Nightfangs.

The grown cub now a young leader, raises his hand and says, “You taught me to choose, Mother. Now I choose war.”