Chapter 28 #2
My heart felt like it would burst. Pain surged through me like a tidal wave—silent, invisible, but all-consuming. It wrapped around my soul and dragged me into everything I had lost.
They were right there—Zara, the children, and I—just a breath away. I could see the glint of the sun in their hair, hear the laughter that once filled my home. But when I reached for them, my hands slipped through the air. Always just out of reach. Always just beyond grasp.
“Zara,” I tried to whisper, my voice strangled, my soul begging.
But she didn’t hear me.
She was speaking with him—the other Balthazar, the man I used to be. Their heads bent together in quiet conversation, the kind that only lovers could share. I stood at the edges like an intruder, a stranger, a ghost haunting a moment that once belonged to me.
Regret carved its way through my chest, unrelenting.
I had come too late.
If I’d only gone back sooner—if I hadn’t wasted so much time chasing revenge, drowning in drink, burying myself in blood—maybe… just maybe, I could’ve saved it all.
But the past was fixed now. Closed. A stage forever set, playing out a life that no longer had room for me.
I wasn’t him anymore.
Too much time had passed. Too much had been lost. And I—what was I now? A shell? A monster? A man cursed to watch joy from the outside, barred from touching the light?
My arms ached to hold my children. To feel the weight of their little bodies against mine. To press their foreheads to my lips, to whisper that I loved them—I never stopped. But I knew that moment would never come. It was a cruel illusion, this place. A perfect world I had already broken.
My heart cried for Zara.
I tried again to speak. To tell her everything I had never said. That I had loved her more than my own soul. That I had never stopped. That she had been the only thing keeping me from complete ruin.
But my mouth formed no words.
Only silence.
Only longing.
And so, I turned away—because staying would destroy me.
I clenched my fists, then threw back my head and screamed.
A raw, bone-rattling roar of anguish tore from my chest and echoed into the heavens. It split the silence like lightning, but still, no god answered.
“Let me feel them!” I shouted, voice shaking the wind. “Let me hold my babies! Let me comfort them—just once! Let me kiss my wife’s lips and remember what it means to live!”
But there was no reply.
No divine mercy. No miracle.
Only the sound of laughter in the distance… laughter that once belonged to me.
I watched, powerless, as they walked away—the children clinging to the other Balthazar, Freya resting her cheek on his shoulder, Zara’s hand entwined in his.
They passed through me like smoke.
Their joy crushed the hollow of my chest, trampling my dreams into the dirt beneath their feet.
And I—
I was nothing.
Not a father.
Not a husband.
Not even a man.
Just a shadow.
Trapped in the ruins of a life I destroyed.
Rage swelled inside me, thick and molten, a fury I hadn’t felt in years. It burned through my veins, dredging up the part of me I had buried long ago—the warlord, the brute, the destroyer. I clenched my fists, trembling with the effort to hold myself together.
I couldn’t watch anymore.
I couldn’t feel anymore.
If I stayed one second longer, I’d shatter into something irredeemable.
So, I turned away and stumbled into the nearest tavern, desperate to drown the fury in anything but memory. The wooden door creaked under my hand, and I pushed inside, greeted by the scent of sweat, smoke, and stale mead.
The barkeep looked up, his expression startled—a man I didn’t recognize.
His eyes met mine.
He could see me.
For the first time today, someone could see me.
Of course. The ones I long to reach cannot. But a stranger with dirty hands and a mead-stained apron? He could interact with me.
I dropped a few silver pieces on the counter. “A drink,” I rasped.
He poured. I drank. Then again. And again.
Maybe if I drank enough, the pain would dull, the ache would fade, and the memories would wash away in amber fire. But no matter how much I consumed, the truth remained etched into my bones—
I was not the man I used to be.
I was a ruin. A wretch. A walking consequence.
After some time—minutes or hours, I couldn’t tell—the barkeep stepped back, arms crossed. “That’s enough, man. It’s not even noon. You need to sleep this off.”
Rough hands gripped my tunic and yanked me from the stool. I barely protested as I was dragged to the door and shoved out like unwanted trash.
I fell into the dust, palms stinging, pride bleeding.
And then—laughter.
Two familiar shapes passed before me.
Ragnar. Thorstein.
My old brothers-in-arms were rough around the edges, their steps uncertain from too much drink or too many battles.
“Hello, old friends!” I called out, raising a hand with a flicker of desperate hope.
Ragnar paused, brow furrowing. “Did you hear that?”
Thorstein scoffed, hands on hips. “Hear what?”
“I don’t know… a voice. Sounded familiar.”
Thorstein cuffed him on the ear. “You’re probably just hearing your wife’s shrieking echo in your skull. She’s going to skin you alive for being gone all night.”
Ragnar thrust his hips in mock rhythm, hands poised as if gripping a woman’s rear. “I know just how to make her forget.”
They both burst into laughter and sauntered away, their banter trailing behind them like the last breath of a dying fire.
I sat there in the dirt, watching them disappear down the street.
I dragged myself to my feet and stumbled toward the only place that felt like home.
It was just as I remembered.
The longhouse stood sturdy and strong, its wooden beams darkened by years of sun and smoke. Built by my own hands, it was sturdy and strong. Smoke curled lazily from the chimney. Neatly stacked wood rested beneath the shed roof. Goats grazed on the hillside, their bleating soft and familiar.
I imagined them inside—that other version of me, the one who hadn’t failed, who hadn’t destroyed everything. Zara. The children. Laughter around the hearth. Peace in the air.
I sank onto a smooth stone at the path’s edge, dropped my head into my hands, and wept.
Then—the day everything changed—rushed back with unrelenting clarity.
The smell of burning thatch. The screams. My arms wrapped around limp bodies. My children. Their blood. The sea of fire that devoured everything I had built.
And Zara…
I had blamed her.
The guilt clawed at me like a beast. How could I have ever accused her? How could I have not seen that I had unraveled it all?
Waves lapped gently against the nearby shore, and the wind carried the faint sound of bleating goats.
I once took that melody of the mundane—the music of an ordinary life—for granted.
I remembered chasing the children barefoot through the fields, milking the herd with sticky hands and laughter in the air.
Now… silence.
Now, only the ghosts of what had been.
Then—a touch.
Light. Familiar.
I opened my eyes.
Zara stood beside me.
Not the Zara of flesh and blood. Not the woman laughing in the longhouse behind me. But my Zara. The ghost I had seen before. Only this time, she was more solid and radiant, as if the sun had crowned her with a halo.
She smiled, and it was like the clouds parted.
She could see me.
And I could finally see her.
“I know you miss them,” she said softly, like the wind through pine.
I couldn’t speak for a moment. The sorrow strangled me. When I finally found my voice, it broke.
“I screwed everything up. I pushed you away when I should’ve held you closer. I saw only what I feared—and not what I had. One blink. One breath. And it was gone.”
Zara nodded, eyes full of that quiet strength I had always admired.
“It’s alright,” she said, her words simple but graceful. “We all make mistakes. But remember—you’re never truly alone.”
Tears streamed down my face.
“You’re the only one for me,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “Always were. Darkness with darkness. We were meant to burn as one flame.”
Zara reached out, her hand grazing my cheek, her thumb catching a tear. The touch was impossibly gentle—impossibly real.
“And we still are,” she said, her voice a haunting blend of ash and sunlight. “Even in the void. Even in the dark.”
Then her expression hardened.
“You should never have chased after Alina,” she chastised.
“We did things right, Balthazar. Our cruelty had a purpose. It was controlled. Justified. We followed the rules. And yet you—you ran after her. After all your ranting that Mathias, her father, was the one who murdered our children—how could you fall for his daughter?”
A cold shiver crept up my spine. Her words wrapped around my heart like chains. My hands trembled, and I didn’t dare reach for her—because I knew my fingers would pass right through her if I tried.
A lump formed in my throat.
“I miss you,” I whispered. “Your wisdom. Your love. Everything about you. But you’re a ghost…”
“I’m as real as you,” she said, her voice steely. “I’m just a few steps away.”
Her gaze locked onto mine, piercing, unwavering. The air between us felt charged, like the moment before lightning struck.
Then came her words—low, urgent, final.
“Balthazar, my love… we can have it all back. Our family. Our girls. But only if you get the blades from Alina. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want us back together?”
Her voice broke with pleading, but her eyes were lit with a fiercer conviction—desperation, hunger.
“Yes,” I said, a pained whisper. “More than anything. I want them back. I want us back.”
She nodded once.
“Then listen to me. Go to 1990. McMont College. You’ll find the blades there… and you’ll find Alina. Focus, Balthazar. Leave the drink behind. Get the blades. Bring our daughters home.”
I tried to resist—to pull back. My mind was still thick with the fog of liquor and grief. But her words pierced through me like blades of truth.