Chapter forty three: strange nightmare

Finnick’s POV

I didn’t sleep for two nights. Freya lay in the bed beside me, but she wasn’t really there. Her body breathed, but her mind was… somewhere else. I kept her hand in mine and whispered her name like a prayer.

Sometimes her fingers clenched. Sometimes her lips parted like she was trying to say something, but no sound came out.

I was frightened. Not just scared of losing her but scared of what was happening inside her.

Scared of what was happening inside me.

The dreams hadn’t flickered or paused. Every time I shut my eyes, I saw flames. Blood. A war I didn’t remember starting. And always, at the end, that same girl with silver eyes crying out my name. And my own hands holding the sword.

Killing her, Freya.

But it wasn’t  this Freya. It was someone older. Sadder. Still her, but not her. A past version, maybe. Or a soul that had come back into her.

I didn’t know what to believe anymore. On the third night, Taron came into the den.

“She’s not going to wake up on her own,” he said. “Her soul is trapped.”

“Where?” I asked, my voice raw from silence.

“In your nightmares” he said.

I glanced at him. “What are you talking about, how do you mean?”

“she lives in you, She’s inside you, Finnick. Your soul. Your mind. Trying to pull you out. She doesn’t trust what she’s seeing. She doesn’t trust you.”

I felt like the ground dropped beneath me.

“She’s using the Godwolf’s gift,” Taron said. “Soul walking. But she’s alone in there. If you don’t meet along with her halfway, she may not return.”

“How?”

Taron reached into his black cloak and handed me a small raw and old silver liquid.

“Drink this under moonlight,” he said. “It’ll take you where she is. But be warned—once inside, you won’t just see her memories. You’ll see your own.”

He paused.

“Even the ones not meant to be remembered.” I did it just before midnight.

The moon was high, round and pale, the kind that made the forest feel like it was watching. I sat on the cold ground with the vial in my hand. My heart raced.

Then I drank and The world fell away. At first, there was only darkness.

Then sound came Screaming.

I opened my eyes and I wasn’t in the forest anymore. I was in a burning city.

Wolves ran through the streets. Not like ours these were larger, wrapped in shadow, claws like knives. They tore through stone and steel like paper.

And in the middle of it all stood me. But i was never the one.

He wore a shield, black and gleaming, designed with symbols I didn’t understand. His face looked like mine, but harder. Colder. Like everything soft in him had died long ago.

Then I saw her.

My Freya.

Silver-haired. Dressed in deep green robes, a crown of moonstones on her head. She stepped between me and the shadow wolves.

“Don’t do this,” she said.

“You betrayed me,” the other me replied.

“No. I saved you. From yourself.”

“Liar.”

He raised his sword. It pulsed with moonlight twisted into darkness.

Freya reached for him and me. “Please. Remember who you are.”

For a moment, his hands shook. Then he struck but Straight through her chest. I screamed. I tried to move, to stop it—but I was only a ghost in the memory. I couldn’t change it.

She fell and then the memory shattered. I was pulled into a new one. This time, I was in a forest. Younger. Alone.

A child__Crying. Then a hand on my shoulder.

Veyrix.

He looked… different. Not evil. Just sad.

“You don’t belong to them,” he told me.

“I’m scared,” I said. He nodded. “I was too. But they’ll never understand what we are.”

He took my hand and suddenly, I felt it.

The bond, Ancient and  Deep but Soul to soul.

He wasn’t just a villain. He was something broken. Something once loved and left behind.

Then I heard her voice, Freya.

“Finnick.”

I turned. She stood in the middle of a white field. The world around us frozen.

“Is it really you?” she asked.

I nodded. “I came for you.”

She rushed forward and threw her arms around me. I held her tight, afraid to let go.

“You saw it,” she whispered against my chest.

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t want you to.”

“I needed to.”

She pulled back and looked into my eyes. “He’s not gone. Veyrix. He’s still trying to get in. Through me. Through you.”

“I know.”

Her hand trembled in mine. “That cub… it’s not just a warning. It’s a key. A piece of him waiting for the right moment.”

I stared into the distance. The white field around us was beginning to crack. Darkness leaked in from the edges.

“We don’t have much time,” I said. “Tell me what to do.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. But we have to be honest. No more lies.”

I swallowed hard.

“There’s something else,” I said. “In the dream—when I killed you—it wasn’t just betrayal. It was love.”

She frowned. “What?”

“I think… I loved you. Back then. Before everything. And I think I killed you because I thought it would save you.”

Freya’s eyes welled with tears. “Do you still love me now?” I stepped closer, holding her face in my hands.

“With everything I have.”

Then the ground beneath us shattered and we were pulled apart.

I woke up screaming and back in the den. My chest was heaving. My skin soaked in sweat.

Freya gasped awake beside me, clutching her chest like she couldn’t breathe. I grabbed her, and she wrapped herself around me like she’d drown without me.

We sat there for a long time. Breathing,  Crying,  Not speaking. We didn’t need to because something deep had changed. We were tied by more than just love.

We were tied by history. But then just as she was drifting off again her voice changed. Not her own, soft,  Deep, and  Cold.

“I was him, Freya,” I heard myself whisper. Her eyes opened, wide with fear.

“What did you say?”

I blinked. I didn’t remember speaking. My voice had moved on its own.

I tried to speak again but something stopped me. From deep inside me, a growl echoed.

A voice not mine,  presence waking then I heard it again, inside my head.

Veyrix but not like before, not a ghost Nor a memory.

Alive.

“I’m still here,” he whispered.