Chapter forty nine: dangerous advice

Finnick pov

Freya was too quiet. We sat near a low fire deep in the Shadowroot Wilds, where even the air refused to breathe. The cub__no, the boy slept in a shallow circle of ashes beside us, the faint silver pulse of his skin dimming with every hour. I watched him but my focus kept slipping back to her.

Freya hadn’t spoken since the vision ended.

Not when the world showed us burned cities. Not when the child we raised stood at the center of a war. Not even when he called her Mother  and declared he’d chosen war.

It wasn’t silence born of fear. I knew her better than that.

It was silence born of grief.

“I saw it too,” I said finally, voice low.

She didn’t turn, but I saw her eyes twitch. Her fingers were curled tight around the edge of her cloak, knuckles pale. “Saw what?”

“You, standing in fire,” I said. “And me… standing behind you, too late to stop it.”

Freya shook her head. “I don’t want that future.”

“Then we won’t let it happen.”

Her voice broke. “We don’t get to choose, Finnick.”

“Yes,” I said, shifting closer. “We do.”

I placed my hand on hers. She didn’t pull away.

“Whatever this curse is, whatever the prophecy says that we’re not bound to it. You told me once that love has its own power, so let it.”

Her eyes finally met mine. “Even if that love is the reason everything’s unraveling?”

I brushed my fingers against her scar, just above the crescent moon. “Then let it unravel. And we’ll build something new.”

She smiled barely but it was real. And gods, I would’ve torn the whole world down to see that smile again.

The boy stirred just before dawn. I barely recognized him anymore.

He looked twelve now, taller and leaner. His eyes had gone darker like the sky before a storm. Still silver but now with flickers of black that came and went like shadows in water.

Freya knelt beside him. “Are you in pain?”

He shook his head. “No but I hear them again. The voices,  ones in the vision. They’re calling me toward the old altar.”

I tensed. “No way you’re going alone.”

“I wasn’t asking,” he said, then softened “But I’d like you with me.”

We moved carefully through the trees, Freya at his side, me trailing behind with one hand on the blade strapped to my back. The Wilds had grown darker, colder. The air tasted like ash and memory.

And then we found it.

A stone altar, half-swallowed by roots and shadow. Symbols lined its surface old markings, older than the packs. The stone was warm, almost humming.

The boy stepped forward. He didn’t hesitate.

Freya reached out, but I held her hand.

“Let him,” I said quietly. “He needs to see.”

She didn’t like it. But she trusted me. That meant more than I could ever say.

The moment his fingers touched the altar, the ground trembled. A piece of stone lifted from the earth, a black fang, smooth and glowing.

The boy looked at it like he remembered it from a dream. He held it in both hands.

And that’s when Freya collapsed.

“Freya!” I caught her before she hit the ground, her body shaking in my arms. Blood soaked her shirt where the crescent mark split open again.

Her voice was weak. “He… it’s tied to me…”

The boy turned, eyes wide with guilt. “I didn’t mean...”

“It’s not your fault,” I snapped. “This place is doing something to all of us.”

Her head rested against my chest, her breath shallow. I pressed my forehead to hers.

“I’ve got you,” I whispered. “You hear me? You’re not going anywhere.”

She smiled through the pain. “If I die… you better follow me.”

“Not a chance,” I whispered. “You’re stuck with me.”

Then the air split.

A scream, not human and not a wolf__echoed through the trees.

Shapes emerged from the shadows. Dozens, Maybe hundreds. Eyes burning red, cloaked in vines, bark and moonlight.

And leading them__Liora.

She was no longer just a woman. Her face had shifted to half wolf, half something else. Her hair moved like smoke, and her feet didn’t touch the ground.

She stopped before us, looking first at the boy, then at Freya, then finally at me.

“You broke the oath,” she said.

“You left us no choice,” I growled.

She turned to the boy. “Your power has awakened. The Hollow Oath is undone. Do you feel it?”

He clutched the fang tighter. “I feel… everything.”

“Then rise,” she said. “Your kind has slept long enough. Lead them.”

“No,” he said.

Silence.

He stepped in front of us between me and Freya, facing Liora. “I won’t lead them. Not like this. Not with you.”

“You would defy me?” she hissed.

“I choose my family,” he said. “Even if the blood remembers. Even if fate demands it. I choose them.”

Liora’s face twisted and then the earth opened.

Not a crack but a rift.

From its depths crawled a beast unlike anything I’d ever seen.

A wolf but made of bones and black fire. Its eyes were hollow. Its chest burned with a heart that was not a heart but a void.

And it spoke.

“Freya…”

She stirred in my arms, eyes wide.

“I know that voice,” she whispered. “It’s my father…”

 The bone-wolf bows to Liora and then turns to the boy, saying, “Only one may carry the flame,  kill her and take your place.”