The battlefield was silent.
No horns. No final screams. Just the slow creak of broken banners in the wind and the hush of snow falling over ash.
Freya emerged from the ruins as if she had stepped through a dream. The sigils that once shimmered beneath her skin had faded to pale scars. The wolf-god’s energy—wild and unchained—was no longer tethered to her veins, but something deeper had changed.
She no longer walked like a ghost in exile.
She walked like someone the world had tried and failed to erase.
---
At the gates of Frostfang, soldiers stood frozen as the exiles returned—wounded, bloodied, but standing.
Theo supported Freya with one arm, his gait slow, his blade sheathed for the first time in days.
Ulric, once a puppet of Garrick’s court, limped forward from the plaza. He dropped to one knee, his voice rough.
“I confess what I did. Before everyone. I branded you a traitor to survive. But you never were.”
Freya stared down at him, unspeaking.