"A Flame that Fades"

Chapter 31: What We Carry

Azgar's POV

"Freya!" I shouted. "Wait."

She stopped, but she didn't really turn. Her eyes found me over her shoulder, glassy and hollow, like something inside her had already broken and she was just...waiting for the rest to fall apart.

"How are you holding up?" The words fell out of my mouth before I could stop them. Fuck. Useless words. What kind of question is that? Her father murdered, her mother exposed as a traitor, her whole damn childhood a lie. She wasn't "holding up." She was standing in the wreckage of everything she thought was true.

I clenched my fists. I wanted to fix it. Tear it apart. Burn it down for her. But all I had was this pitiful, shaking voice.

"Do you...want a hug?"

She looked at me like she hadn't even heard. Just stared, lips trembling, her face crumbling piece by piece until her strength ran out. Then she stumbled—like her knees couldn't carry her anymore—and that was it.

I caught her. Pulled her against me, arms locked tight around her small frame as if holding her together would keep her from breaking. And then she shattered.

Her scream ripped through me, muffled into my shoulder, raw and animal. Sobs tore out of her chest, shaking her so hard it rattled my bones. My tunic was wet with her tears, and still she cried, clawing at my back like she was drowning and I was the only thing keeping her above water.

I bit my lip until it bled, fighting my own tears. She needed me steady. She needed me strong. But I wasn't. Not with her shaking in my arms, not with the truth carved into her skin and her voice breaking on my name.

"Fay..." My voice split in two. I pressed my forehead to hers, clutching her tighter. "I'm so sorry."

And I was. Sorry I hadn't been there to stop it. Sorry she had carried this alone. Sorry that all I could do now was hold her while her world fell apart.

***

I kept pressing kisses to the crown of her head, desperate to ease even a fraction of the fire eating her alive from the inside. My lips, my arms, my body—I gave them all to her, because gods know the rest of the world had already failed her.

The people meant to protect her. The ones she should've been able to trust without question. Family. The word was supposed to mean safety. For Freya, it had been nothing but betrayal.

"Azgar..." Her voice rasped against my chest, brittle and shaking.

"What is it, Fay?" I asked softly, threading my fingers through her hair. Anything to anchor her here, with me.

Her breath hitched, a jagged sob tearing loose as she choked out, "Why does she hate me...? My own mother..."

The words stabbed deep, and for a moment I couldn't breathe. She wasn't asking me for answers. She was asking the universe. The gods. Whoever the fuck was out there listening.

I cupped the back of her head and pulled her tighter, my jaw locking so hard I thought my teeth would break.

"She doesn't hate you, Fay," I said, my voice low, almost a growl. "She hates herself. She hates what she did, and she threw it all on you because you're the one thing she could never control. You shine too bright for her, and it burned her to look at you."

Her fingers twisted in my tunic, holding on like I was the last solid thing in the world.

"She should've loved you first," I whispered fiercely against her hair. "And she didn't. That's her failure, not yours. Never yours."