Chapter 168 Ravens In the Silence

Chapter 168 When the Dead Speak
FREYA -

Freya’s knees weakened, and she reached out to Casey before she even realized it. His fingers wrapped around her wrist, and the steady pressure helped her breathe through the rush that voice had pulled up in her chest.
His arm slid around her waist, warm and steady, while the air between the Stones thinned and the sunrise looked pale and stretched.
The Claim warmed against Freya’s chest once more.
Mist pulled inward from the grass, curling between two Stones before it gathered into the outline of a man. Ravens crowded the trees without making a sound, their black eyes fixed on the space where gray light slowly became shoulders, hands, dark hair, and a face Freya had only seen in broken flashes and old records.
Her fingers dug into Casey’s hand.
The man stood tall, and although he looked like Jared in the cut of his jaw, the man's presence didn't push against her in heavy waves. Instead, he carried his strength quietly. Old wounds darkened his shirt, and when his eyes found Freya, the grief in them made her throat close.
“No,” she whispered, her heart aching through every painful beat. “You can’t be.”
The man’s mouth lifted with a sad smile. “I called you little wolf before your eyes were fully open.”
Freya’s breath caught as tears fought to cloud her vision and her throat filled with a lump.
“You used to curl your hand in my shirt when I held you,” he said, his voice rough, like he hadn't used it in years. “Your mother said you had my temper before you could even walk.”
The Claim pulsed once, almost searing her skin.
“I am Lance Calder,” he said. “I am your father.”
The words settled so heavily that Freya had to press one hand over the Claim. Casey’s arm drew her closer as her breathing turned thin and uneven.
Grace stood near one of the Stones with her palm pressed flat to its surface. Her face was pale, and her eyes were wet as she watched the man in the circle.
Freya forced air into her lungs. “Where’s my mother?”
Lance’s expression changed, and the mist around his shoulders shifted with him. “Your mother went where this land couldn’t hold her. She was human, little wolf, but she was braver than most wolves I ever knew.”
Freya swallowed, and it hurt. “So she’s gone?”
“She’s beyond this place.” Lance took one step closer, though the light around him trembled. “But she died knowing you were not in that house. She died knowing you still had a chance.”
A sound tried to climb out of Freya’s chest, but she clenched her jaw until it stayed trapped inside her throat. She had wanted her mother too. She had wanted both of them standing there with answers, with apologies, with arms she could fall into and hate at the same time for being gone.
Casey’s thumb moved over her knuckles, slow and careful.
Lance’s gaze dropped to their joined hands. The sorrow in his face did not leave, but something warmer moved beside it. “He is the one the Claim answered.”
Freya looked at Casey, but his eyes were fixed on the shifting light between the Stones, not on Lance’s face. His jaw was tight, and his hand stayed locked around hers.
“Can you see him?” she whispered.
Casey shook his head once. “Not clearly. I can feel you seeing him.”
Lance’s expression softened. “Then tell him to hold on. The past will try to pull you under.”
Freya looked from Casey back to Lance. “Why now? Why couldn’t you come before?”
“The bond steadied the gift you were born with. I could feel you before, like in the diner parking lot,” he said, his voice turning quieter. “But I couldn’t reach you. The living all look the same to us. Blurs of... fuzzy space. Warmth. Movement. Nothing we can really hold onto.” His eyes found hers again. “Now I can see you. Now I can reach the Valkyrie who awoke."
The word moved through the Stones, and the ravens shifted in the trees. Freya felt the sound under her feet in the damp grass, a low vibration that climbed through her legs and made the Claim grow warmer against her palm.
“I don’t know how to be... that,” she said, trying not to think back to that night at the Diner. She wondered if the ghost in the parking lot had been her father, but who could she ask?
“You don’t have to know today.” Lance’s eyes stayed on hers. “Today, you're asking for the truth and it's time you witnessed what was stolen from you.”
A raven dropped from the branches, its wings cutting through the pale morning before it landed in the grass inside the circle. Its claws sank into the wet earth, and something small and pale rested in its beak. The bird hopped forward and laid the stone between Freya and Lance before backing away with its head lowered.
The stone was milky gray, smooth and rounded, with black and blue lines trapped inside it like smoke beneath ice. Frost gathered around the grass it touched, and when the Claim warmed again, a faint blue pulse answered from inside the stone.
Grace’s breath shook. “A Vision Stone.”
Freya stared at it. “What does it do?”
“It carries the truth in a way that words can't twist,” Lance said. “The dead can speak, but the living can still twist what they hear. This will let you see.”
Cold moved over Freya’s fingers before she touched it. “See what?”
Lance’s teeth pressed together, and anger moved across his face for the first time. “The night Jared came to us as family. The night your mother was given a choice that wasn't really a choice at all.”
Freya’s stomach dropped as Jared’s voice came back to her, smooth and cruel, telling her that her mother had thought she was choosing too.
“Watch, little wolf,” Lance said, his voice breaking around the name. “Watch, and know what your mother chose.”
Grace moved closer to the edge of the circle, her hand still dragging along the Stone as if she was afraid to lose contact. “Freya, if you touch it, don’t fight whatever it shows you. Stay with Casey. Let him hold you from this side.”
Casey’s hand tightened around hers. “I’ve got you.”
Freya looked at him, and the bond stayed warm, coiled around her ribs. Then she looked at Lance, her eyes lingering for a moment to take him in, and finally down at the stone resting in the wet grass.
Her fingers shook when she reached for it.
The moment her skin touched the vision stone, cold shot through her palm and up her arm, but Casey’s hand stayed warm around her other one. The Stones, the ravens, and the sunrise vanished around her as Lance’s voice followed her into the dark.
“Know what your mother chose.”
Freya opened her eyes inside the night her parents died.