Chapter 28 #3
“You’re a ghost, Zara,” I said, half to convince myself. “You aren’t real. How can I believe any of this? What if it’s just another lie? Another chase that leads nowhere?”
Zara’s eyes narrowed. Fire burned in their depths.
“I’m tired of you not believing in me,” she hissed. “Your daughters would be ashamed. And I… I am disappointed in you, Balthazar.”
Her voice hitched—not just with fury, but with a love that still clung to the ruins of what we once were.
And it gutted me.
My heart stilled as she turned away. Her form shimmered once, then vanished, leaving nothing but a hollow chill and a silence that froze the marrow in my bones. A frigid sensation crawled down my spine like the kiss of death. I wasn’t sure what terrified me more—that she had gone… or might return.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t.
I remained rooted to the same stone from morning until dusk, a silent sentinel to the life I had lost. I watched him—the other Balthazar—playing with my children, holding my wife, and living my joy.
Zara’s hands were in the soil as she gardened, her laughter rising like music.
The children ran circles around her, squealing with delight.
And when the other me danced with Freya, Revna, Meya, Tove, and Astrid, I lifted my arms and turned in mournful circles, waltzing with ghosts only I could see.
I imagined their laughter was for me. I mimed silly faces, whispered tales of faraway lands, trying to steal a sliver of what once had been mine.
But it was torture. And it was endless.
What was left for me here? Should I stay and be gutted by memory, or cast myself into the unknown, into 1990, where Zara claimed fate still waited?
The answer whispered itself into the cold wind. Remaining would only carve deeper wounds. But if I hurled myself forward—if I found Alina, if I claimed the blades—perhaps I could finally reshape the ruin of my life.
That night, snow fell like ash—soft, silent. A blanket of stillness settled over the longhouse. Inside, my family huddled together in warmth and safety.
But outside… I stood alone.
The fjord stretched before me, its frozen surface shimmering beneath the gibbous moon like a silver mirror to my pain. I lifted my gaze to the stars, my chest heavy with longing. The memories returned—unforgiving.
The day it all burned.
The day my children were taken from me.
The day Zara’s warmth slipped from my grasp forever.
Their faces flickered in my mind, softening at the edges, dissolving into smoke. Their laughter—the melody that once filled our longhouse—was now a faint echo in the wind. And her embrace… no longer something I could feel, only ache for.
I knew—
Tomorrow, I would leave.
But tonight, I would grieve them one last time.
And yet, my feet refused to move. I remained rooted to the earth, a sorrowful statue, beneath the moon’s watchful eye.
I thought of all that could have been.
All that should have been.
If only I had been stronger. Wiser. Faster.
Then—
A strange sound. Far off. Muffled. Movement in the snow.
I squinted toward the hillside, and a ghostly vision unfolded before me—cloaked figures—six, maybe seven—emerging through the snow like wraiths. Their pace was purposeful, coordinated, and merciless.
Timehunters.
My breath caught.
I was seeing it. That night. The night.
They descended on my longhouse with burning torches held high, the firelight licking across their cruel faces. One by one, they pressed flames to the wood. The thatch caught. Flames bloomed. Smoke curled. Screams rose.
Children’s screams.
My children.
I fell to my knees as fire swallowed the home I had built with my own hands. My heart shattered with each shriek that tore through the night air.
And then—I saw them. Zara and the other Balthazar ran toward the blaze with wild eyes and weapons drawn. The other me lunged at a Timehunter, driving a dagger into his throat. Blood sprayed across the snow.
Then—
One of the cloaked men burst from the inferno, carrying a small, limp body. He moved like a predator on the run, torchlight flickering across his face, eyes cold, hollow, inhuman.
Tove.
He held her up like a trophy, taunting the other Balthazar.
I screamed in anguish, my voice raw and meaningless in the spectral air.
Tears poured down my cheeks, useless in the face of a horror I could no longer change.
Then, from the corner of my eye, movement.
A man appeared. Slim. Ordinary. Fragile.
Not a Timehunter.
He wore glasses and looked wildly out of place—more scholar than soldier, as if he’d wandered from a library into a battlefield. He didn’t attack, didn’t intervene. He crept through the chaos with purpose.
I followed him through the drifting snow, my ghostly steps weightless on the earth.
He stopped.
A faint cry echoed from a mound of white.
He dropped to his knees and dug feverishly through the snowbank. Then, a face emerged.
Freya.
My Freya.
Bloodied, shivering, alive.
She whimpered and reached for the man, and he clutched her close, wrapping her tiny frame in his arms. Without a word, he turned and vanished into the night, away from the burning wreckage of my past.
I stood frozen.
My breath caught.
My knees buckled.
“My Freya…” I choked, the name escaping me like a prayer. “She… she lived.”
A wail tore from the depths of my soul—an anguished cry of disbelief, relief, and a hope I hadn’t dared to feel in years.
All this time, I had thought her dead.
My only evidence was a blood-speckled shoe buried in a snowbank. A child’s shoe. That had been enough to condemn her to memory. And yet… she had survived.
I looked up at the night sky, tears scalding my cheeks, and whispered thanks to the stars above for sparing one of mine, for Freya.
My Freya.
The last heartbeat of my lost family.
She had been taken that fateful night—ripped from our home under the full moon. And now, by some impossible stroke of fate, I knew she was alive.
The man who carried her paused mid-stride, as though sensing me. Slowly, he turned. Our eyes locked.
His gaze sliced through me—cold, calculating, inhumanly still.
He wasn’t just a man.
There was something else in him. Something darker. A mind sharpened by secrets and shadows. My skin prickled. My instincts screamed. But before I could move, he was gone.
The vision dissolved.
I was alone again, standing in the still hush of night as snowflakes drifted lazily to the earth.
But something inside me had changed.
A single ember of hope flared in my chest. Freya was alive.
Who had taken her? Where was she now?
I didn’t have the answers. But I knew what I had to do.
My daughters were gone.
My wife was a ghost.
My legacy had been scorched by fire and betrayal.
But now—now, there was a chance to restore it.
Zara had told me the blades could bring them back—the Sun and Moon Daggers—powerful enough to pierce the boundaries of time. I would find them. I would wield them.
Even if it meant spilling blood to do it.
Even if it meant hunting down Alina and ending her life.
How foolish I’d been to let passion blind me. To touch the daughter of the man who murdered my children. Mathias’ blood runs in her veins.
There would be no more mercy.
No more hesitation.
Only rage-fueled vengeance.
I was coming for Alina; no force on this earth or beyond would stop me from reclaiming my family.
And destroying Mathias’ legacy forever.