Chapter 28
Balthazar
Ihad been searching for Alina for years, chasing shadows through cities and ruins, across lifetimes and bloodstained paths.
Hope had become a flicker—a dim, fading ember I could barely see anymore.
Every lead ended in nothing. Every name turned cold.
It was as if she had been swallowed by time itself.
Nothing made sense anymore. My life had become a void.
The only comfort I clung to was the memory of my children—of the brief, golden days before the Timehunters took them from me.
It felt like a lifetime ago. Their laughter, once vibrant in my mind, faded like a song I couldn’t recall.
Even those memories were slipping into the abyss that revenge had carved inside me.
I no longer slept. I barely breathed. I drank. I killed. I searched. Again. And again. And again.
Each corpse I left behind was another scream into the silence, another reminder that happiness, real happiness, had died long ago. And yet, a part of me still ached, aching to rebuild what had been stolen. Deep down, I feared I had already become too broken, too far gone.
That night, I stumbled home under the weight of darkness and bourbon, the streets around my estate silent and still. Once filled with life and voices, the vast halls of my manor now echoed with only the sound of my own destruction. It felt more tomb than home.
I paused in the corridor, the floor tilting beneath me as the liquor surged in my veins.
Then, I saw her.
A flicker. A shift in the corner of my vision.
I turned, too drunk to react with speed, my vision blurred.
And there she was.
Zara.
She stepped from the shadows like a whisper given form. Pale. Still. Timeless.
My throat constricted. I couldn’t bring myself to look directly into her face. My heart pounded, and a cold sweat formed at the nape of my neck.
A hallucination.
A ghost.
Gods, let it be real.
“Balthazar… sweetheart,” she said, her voice so familiar that it gutted me. “You look miserable.”
“I am,” I choked out, barely able to form the words. I reached for the half-empty decanter of bourbon sitting atop the walnut cabinet and took a long, burning swallow. “My life is empty. A wasteland. A void.”
I staggered, weaving on my feet. I threw out a hand to brace myself against the wall.
“Listen to me,” I muttered, laughing bitterly through a throat thick with tears. “I’m talking to a ghost. A ghost! Ha! What a fool I’ve become.”
Drool slipped from the corner of my mouth. I wiped it with my hand, my vision swimming.
And still… she remained.
Zara stood in the pale candlelight, not a shimmer, not a whisper—but real enough to haunt me.
“You miss what we had,” she said softly, her voice brushing against the raw edges of my soul. “I do, too. I know you think of the children.”
I waved my hands through the air, as if conjuring the past.
“Their hair… like gold threads in the sun,” I whispered. “Their smiles. Their laughter. The way they ran to me when I came home from a raid—arms open, faces lit up like I was their entire world.”
A foolish, broken smile tugged at my lips.
“Yet you’ve never gone back,” she said, her voice like a caress upon my fevered brow.
“True.” My voice caught in my throat, barely audible. I swayed where I stood, unmoored, my mind swimming through memory and alcohol. “But maybe… maybe I still could. Maybe if I go back far enough, I can stop it. Save them. Reclaim it all.”
I turned to her, desperate to believe my own lie.
But the words died in my throat.
Her expression was soft and mournful. She reached out and touched my back—lightly, lovingly—like she used to. The tenderness in her eyes was unbearable.
“If only it were that easy, my love,” she whispered.
And then—like breath on glass—she was gone.
No sound. No flash. Just vanished.
An inhuman cry tore from my chest. The bottle slipped from my hand and shattered on the floor, shards of glass catching the dim light as bourbon bled into the expensive rug beneath me.
I collapsed to my knees.
“Zara! Oh, Zara…”
My voice broke as I dropped my face into my hands, sobbing—deep, soul-splitting sobs that echoed through the empty halls of the house like mourning bells. The pain was suffocating. Endless.
I wept until I sank into a pit of blackness.
When I awoke, the world was silent—the witching hour. That fragile stretch of time when darkness held its breath and the light hadn’t yet found the courage to return.
The moon hung high in the sky, casting a pale glow like a watchful eye through the window.
It didn’t just shine. It called to me.
I rose, aching and stiff. My head throbbed, my throat as dry as ash, my limbs heavy with grief and drink. I stumbled outside into the hush of the night, where the grass shivered with dew beneath my bare feet.
There was nothing left for me here. Nothing.
If I craved redemption—if I wanted even a fragment of what I’d lost—I had to start over. Return to the past. Reclaim my life and shape it back into the glory it once held.
I’d done this more times than I could count, and the sensation still unnerved me.
It began as a shimmer at the edge of my vision, subtle and surreal, like ripples dancing across still water.
Then the edges of my body blurred. Light fractured around me.
My hands, arms, chest—all fading into something not quite air or memory.
Even through my drunken haze, I could feel the wind brushing my skin and the chill of the earth beneath my feet. But I was no longer entirely there. I had become a ghost wrapped in shimmering light.
The air crackled.
Then I was gone.
Time unraveled around me and snapped back into place.
I landed in a mud puddle with a splash, face-first in the reeking earth of my former Viking settlement.
Christ, I thought, coughing and spitting grit from my mouth.
The acute stench of offal, rot, and animal waste hit me immediately.
Someone must’ve pitched refuse from a window above.
I staggered to my feet, my fine wool coat sliced with filth.
Disgusted, I stripped it off and hurled it aside.
My hair was tangled, damp with mud. My boots were caked in things I didn’t want to identify.
And yet—
My heart pounded with something close to exhilaration.
I turned my eyes to the horizon. There it was—the sea—the same sea.
The breeze carried salt, smoke, and ash.
The sky above was brilliant blue, stretching endlessly and familiarly.
The scent of firewood and fish, the clamor of blacksmiths, laughter, and dogs barking all stabbed at my heart like a memory made flesh.
I stood at the edge of the place I once ruled and loved.
Wooden huts were scattered across the landscape—some with sagging thatched roofs, others reinforced with shutters and iron nails. Smoke twisted from chimneys. Chickens darted under carts. Life went on.
I moved like a shadow through the village, slipping behind huts and walls. My coat still reeked of filth, and I couldn’t be seen like this.
Near one doorway, clean linens fluttered on a line in a tidy courtyard. I stole a pair of trousers and a plain linen tunic, tugging them on as fast as I could. I tossed my ruined clothes into the street like the shame they were.
Then I walked.
Into my past.
Into the place I had once called home.
Morning stretched its golden arms across the fjord, spilling light over the water like liquid fire. Even in my disheveled state, I couldn’t help but feel a flicker of hope stir in my chest. The place was unmistakable. Familiar, even after all these centuries.
The salty breeze carried the scent of seaweed and hearth smoke. Seagulls cried above, slicing through the quiet with their haunting calls. The sun shimmered on the crests of the waves, casting fleeting diamonds across the bay. Life pulsed all around me.
People moved with that bold, rhythmic confidence so uniquely Viking—hauling nets, trading goods, hammering blades at open forges. Children darted between buildings, shrieking with laughter, their bare feet kicking up dust. The air buzzed with warmth and purpose.
This was home.
I hadn’t just lived here—I had thrived here. Led here and loved here.
A wave of emotion slammed into me as memories ripped through the armor I’d built over the years. I remembered the taste of mead on my tongue. The warmth of a shared bed. The sound of laughter around the firelight.
And then—I saw her.
Zara.
She strode across the village square with the same grace I remembered, her long hair dancing on the breeze, her eyes set with quiet resolve. Time hadn’t touched her—not in the way it had ravaged me. She was just as I remembered. Beautiful. Alive.
I moved to run to her, call out, and take her in my arms—but my body didn’t follow. My legs wouldn’t move. I was frozen, like the earth had turned to iron beneath my feet.
I looked down, heart hammering.
I could see myself, faint, translucent.
A ghost in my own past.
The air passed through me, and though I reached out, my fingers never touched the wind. I was here, and not here. Present but unmoored from this world.
Zara walked past, only steps away.
I wanted to scream her name, to tell her everything—that I had returned, that I was sorry, that I would give anything to have it all back.
But when I opened my mouth, no sound came. No breath. No voice.
Only silence.
And then—him.
A younger version of myself, hale and strong, jogged down the dusty road. A child rode on his shoulders—Freya—and three others ran beside him, laughing. My children. Our children.
He caught up to Zara, grinning, and slid his arm around her waist like he’d done a thousand times before. She turned and kissed his cheek. Freya reached for her mother, and younger-me handed her over with a warmth and joy I could feel in my bones.
I stood there, watching.
And broke.
That’s me.
And those are my children.
A life I once lived.
A life I’d lost.
A life I could see—but never touch again.