2126 – Past Timeline

  The sky over Asgard had been hurled into ember.

  It was not just the fierce, roaring burn. It was the low, suffocating red that settled slowly once the screaming had guttered out, once thunder no longer bothered to answer, once even the oldest gods finally understood that something irrevocable had finished happening. The end, as they say. Ragnarok.

  Aron stood motionless at the center of the ruin. Blood had soaked through every layer of his coat until the fabric clung tight to his skin. It dripped in slow, deliberate rhythm from his fingertips, falling onto the marble floor where it had already formed a wide puddle of blood and torn flesh.

  Behind him the great hall smoldered. Golden pillars, each one older than most mortal civilizations, stood split and half-collapsed, their filigree capitals blackened and weeping molten residue.

  Thor lay broken at the foot of the shattered dais steps, Mj?lnir still gripped in a hand that would never lift it again. The thunder god's chest was caved inward; ribs jutted at wrong angles like the ribs of a shipwreck.

  Loki lay ten meters away on his side, one long arm stretched toward a dagger whose blade had never found purchase. The trickster's famous half-smile was frozen in place, surprised and almost amused, as though death itself had played the last joke wrong.

  They had died fighting.

  They had died well.

  But it had not mattered.

  Freya knelt between the two bodies.

  She did not scream at first. No wail, no curse, no theatrical collapse like any ordinary mother might have made. She simply stared, first at Thor's ruined face, then at Loki's outstretched hand, then back again. Her fingers trembled when she finally reached out. She brushed a smear of soot from Thor's cheek with the gentleness one might use on a sleeping child, as though careful pressure and sufficient care might still coax breath back into him. But it did not.

  "Ha… haha…" she laughed, broken. "You did it," she whispered.

  Aron did not move. He did not blink. He just stared, his golden eyes cold but also tired, weary.

  "You actually did it," she continued.

  Her shoulders shook once. Twice. The laugh fractured into something far uglier, rawer. "I helped you." Her voice cracked like thin ice. "Do you remember that part? I helped you."

  Aron said nothing.

  "I opened doors for you. I broke oaths for you. I stood against my own blood because you promised unity mattered. Because you swore this endless war had to end somewhere."

  Her eyes lifted slowly until they met his. "You said we could build something new."

  Thor's blood had simmered across the hem of her dress in a wide, darkening stain. She did not seem to notice. She did not want to.

  "All I wanted was peace," she went on, softer now. "A world where my family could wake without scanning the sky for demons every sunrise. A world where Odin did not have to choose between pride and survival every dawn. Where we would not have to worry about other gods."

  Her gaze sharpened to a blade's edge.

  "But you couldn't handle it." The words landed heavier than any hammer blow. "You couldn't handle Odin. He couldn't handle you. Men will be men, isn't that what you always say?"

  She rose unsteadily, knees leaving wet prints on the marble. Step by deliberate step she crossed the blood-slick floor until she stood close enough that he could smell iron and lilies on her.

  He did not retreat. He simply stood, bearing her look of anguish. Her hand rose slowly.

  Slap!

  The sound rang out, sharp, clean, startling in the silence. It carried no real force. It did not crack bone or split skin. Just palm against cheek.

  Aron did not flinch.

  Slap!

  She struck again, this time with a closed fist driven into the center of his chest. Once. Twice. The impacts thudded dully against armor and muscle and old scar tissue. "Say something!" she demanded.

  He remained silent.

  "Was this the only way?" Her voice dropped to a broken whisper. "Death and destruction? Is that truly the only language the Slayer understands?"

  Silence stretched taut between them. His eyes, gold dimmed by exhaustion and something older, remained steady or perhaps, pretended to.

  "If I had found another way," he said at last, voice rough as broken stone, "I would have taken it. But you and I both know… this was bound to happen."

  She searched his face for the lie and found none.

  "And if time folded backward?" she asked. "If we stood here again, same blood, same bodies, same sky, would you choose differently?"

  He did not hesitate.

  "I would do it again."

  The confession cut deeper than any blade ever forged in Asgard. Freya stepped back as though physically struck. For one heartbeat pure hate eclipsed grief.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  "You are a monster," she whispered. "You always were, the weapon of the creator, a machine who follows only orders from a system!"

  Aron did not deny it.

  Her lips trembled.

  "You will live," she said, softer now, almost gentle. "You will live to watch every world fall. Every friend burn. Every fragile hope gutter out."

  The golden warmth in her eyes hardened into frost. "And when the last light finally dies… no one will stand beside you."

  Aron's brow tightened fractionally. "Freya—"

  But the decision had already crystallized inside her. She pressed her palm flat against her own chest. Something luminous tore free, violent white-gold light that made the air scream. "That is my Curse!"

  He lunged.

  "Don't—!"

  Too late. She had sacrificed her heart. Not poetically or symbolically. Literal divinity flared once, blinding, furious, then collapsed inward. Using her whole being to power her curse, her body gradually sagged.

  Aron caught her before she struck stone. Her fingers twitched once against the black fabric of his coat, smearing fresh blood in a long, accusing streak. For a single second the hate dissolved. She looked only tired.

  "I...loved you," she breathed. "Don't you… forget that."

  Then she was gone.

  …

  2026

  "The ritual is ready," James called.

  Aron blinked hard, snapping back to the present. Snow still fell. The air remained utterly cold. Greenland's fractured ice sheet lay beneath his boots instead of blood-soaked marble. Yet that haunting memory still dwelled inside him.

  He exhaled sharply, as though breaking the surface after being submerged too long.

  Idiot, he called himself silently, the one who had once thought himself righteous. The one who had believed that as long as he had the system and the world at his side, his actions would always be just. What an idiot he really was.

  He dragged a gloved hand down his face, scraping away phantom warmth and the ghost-scent of lilies.

  James stood several meters away, finishing the final strokes of blood across the snow. The summoning circle glowed a faint, arterial crimson, runes intersecting at surgically precise angles.

  "Are you sure she'll come?" James asked quietly.

  Aron stepped into the circle's heart. "She will."

  James frowned. "I don't know why you trust these pagan gods, my lord."

  Aron gave a small, humorless smile that never reached his eyes.

  "I know her," he said. "Better than she ever knew herself."

  The statement only deepened James's confusion. The blood in the circle darkened to near-black. The wind changed direction. The snow beneath their feet shuddered once, subtle but real.

  Then roots broke through the ice, not violently, but with utter gentleness, pushing the snow aside. They slid upward like veins rising beneath pale skin. Twisting. Coiling. Braiding themselves into deliberate symmetry. Leaves unfurled where snow should have lain. Branches bent and re-formed themselves.

  A torso took shape. Arms lengthened. Hair, woven of living vine and birch bark—spilled downward. Finally the eyes opened. They glowed soft, dangerous green.

  "Aron," she said.

  The voice resonated through wood and frost simultaneously.

  "You should have summoned me with something beautiful," Freya observed mildly. "A maiden. A priestess. Don't forget, you still owe me a vessel."

  James stiffened while Aron ignored her antics.

  "Never in your dreams," he muttered.

  The wooden lips curved, faint, knowing. "Why summon me? This isn't the usual Aron I know," she murmured.

  "You don't know me, Freya, and I wish you never try to either. I just want to honor our deal," Aron replied as James backed away a step.

  "You honor our deal?" she asked.

  "I do."

  He stepped closer, boots crunching softly.

  "I told you once," he continued quietly, "that if I ever returned… I would tell you where J?rmungandr truly rests."

  Her wooden fingers twitched once.

  "Hmmm… earlier than expected," she murmured. Her gaze sharpened to splinters. "Where is it then? I have been searching for that damn snake for decades."

  Aron lifted the scanner. In the map's northeastern corner, beneath layered rune interference, one steady god-blink pulsed. "Hephaestus has it," he said simply.

  Freya's expression fractured instantly. "That's a lie… They wouldn't dare," she snapped. "The treaty forbids—"

  "They are Olympians," Aron interrupted, calm as snowfall. "They devour their own children and name the feast politics. You truly believed the ones who devoured the previous pantheon would hold the line on morality?"

  Her wooden jaw tightened audibly.

  "You believe in the ancient rumors…"

  He tilted his head a fraction. "I thought you were supposed to be the clever one."

  Silence. Wind hissed over the ice. Freya's gaze drifted past him, through illusion, through snow, through distance, to the palace rising in the false valley below—where the scent of Olympians dominated, the scent she had always hated.

  Hermez's domain. Hephaestus anchoring its reality. In their grounds. In their territory.

  "I will believe you, Aron. They will answer for this," she said at last, voice low and promising. "Odin will not tolerate—"

  "Wait."

  Her gaze snapped back.

  "I have more," Aron said.

  Intrigue flickered in the green depths. She sensed this was not the usual immortal she had dealt with. The one she knew had been a warmonger wearing the skin of a hero, much like her son. But now she saw more in those golden eyes—more than chaos. Wisdom?

  "What price?" she asked softly.

  "You know exactly what I lack."

  Her wooden lips parted slightly. "You don't dilly-dally, do you? Why is your karma more collapsed than before…?" she asked, concerned—not for him, but for what needed to happen. She did not want him weak and useless. The seed she had planted long ago was ripening. She did not want it destroyed.

  The immortal would strike. The Olympians would bleed. And she would harvest more than anyone—more than her own husband. But Hermez needed to fall first. Hephaestus needed to fall harder.

  So she did not simply agree. Instead she reached into her own chest. From the hollow cavity she withdrew something small. Red.

  A vial.

  It pulsed in her palm with a slow, living rhythm. The color was wrong—not wine, not blood. Deeper. Denser. Almost black at the edges. James felt the wrongness crawl up his spine.

  Freya extended the vial toward Aron. "Dwarven finest craftsmanship," she said lightly. "The blood of gods."

  The vial throbbed once. "Karma preserved," she continued. "Refined. Quantified and safely stored. The future of currency, Odin says."

  James recoiled half a step.

  "Karma… as currency?" he whispered.

  Freya's smile widened.

  "It is the future. Mortals hoard gold. Gods will learn to trade… consequence."

  James shook his head, stunned. "That's blasphemy."

  Aron raised a hand, gentle, silencing. He stepped forward and closed his fingers around the vial. It was warm. Too warm. He did not like it. But he knew the vial was inevitable, just as he knew what the prophets did not.

  "You're monetizing fate," James muttered behind him.

  Freya tilted her head.

  "Only sampling it." She leaned closer, bark-scent sharp on the cold air. "I am giving you a taste."

  Aron met her gaze without flinching.

  "Deal."

  James stared at him in open disbelief. Freya's eyes gleamed brighter.

  "You know what? I will add something else," she said softly.

  She snapped her fingers. Reality twisted. Heat shimmered across their skin like fever. James gasped. His reflection in the fractured ice had changed—hair gradually turning bright yellow, eyes shifting to a brownish yellow as well.

  The unmistakable, arrogant aura of an Olympian demigod now cloaked them both, sharp and radiant. Aron glanced at his own distorted image. The disguise was flawless.

  Freya smiled.

  "Twenty-four hours," she said. "After that the illusion collapses."

  She stepped backward. Roots began retreating in a slow, graceful withdrawal.

  "Best of luck… immortal."

  With those words, the summoning circle dissolved into drifting ash. Snow reclaimed the ground. Freya was gone.

  James stared at his own golden hands. "This feels wrong, my lord," he muttered.

  "It is," Aron replied simply. "And it is just the start, James. Get ready."