Page 31 of Fallen Gods

Glancing over at the half smile lingering on her full lips, I can’t help but wonder what my life would be like if I’d just said yes. At least my parents would be alive.

My fists tighten. My skin aches, like it’s stretching to containsomething it wasn’t meant to hold.

A sound—small, brittle—escapes from my palm. I glance down to find a dusting of frost curling across my skin, delicate and shimmering in the light.

I wipe it away quickly, as if that will make it less real.

It’s nothing.

Just her.

Just me.

Sure,nowit wants out. Back then, I would have done anything to awaken a monster that could avenge my parents, but it was buried deep.

“Must be another cold snap,” Reeve mutters, rubbing his arms as he looks up at the sky. “Didn’t feel like this ten minutes ago.”

Rey finally speaks again. “What are they doing under the archway?”

“Witchcraft,” Reeve deadpans. “Or in this case, they’ve heard all of the ridiculous stories about the ancient archway that they believe is a gateway to the Gods. In fact, Endir was built around the archway to preserve it historically.”

I roll my eyes, but ever the tour guide, Reeve keeps going.

“Lake Stevens having any sort of Viking influence that old is kind of wild.” He points out the ancient runes inscribed above the arch.

“Norse, not Viking,” Rey says.

Reeve’s eyebrows shoot up. “Norse, not Viking what?”

Rey huffs. “Viking was a job, not a people. So, all Vikings were Norse, but not all Norse were Vikings.”

She says it like it’s something taught in grammar school, but I have to admit I’ve never thought of it that way before. And she’s right. “Like how all sneakers are shoes, but not all shoes are sneakers.”

Her eyes catch mine and twinkle, a slow smile lifting her high cheekbones even higher. Not that I notice. “Exactly.”

I drag my gaze from Rey’s and fix it on the arch. A short guy with a cloud of black hair sprints through, shielding the flickering of his candle with one hand, like speed alone will keep something ancient from snuffing out the flame. He reaches the other side, and his friends erupt in cheers, slapping him on the back. He lifts the candle overhead, his grin as bright as the fire he managed to protect.

A blond girl steps up next. One foot under the arch, then another. She inches forward like every step might collapse the ground beneath her.

Behind her, a taller girl with a long black braid jogs past, offering an encouraging smile over her shoulder as she clears the threshold in a single breath.

More freshmen follow—some cautious, some confident—raising their candles like trophies once they make it to the other side.

I keep my focus there, pretending to track who makes it through and who falters. It’s easier than letting on that I’m hanging on every word of the conversation unfolding just a few feet to my left.

Reeve is giving Rey the full campus tour in lecture form—names, histories, rumors. I could probably recite it in my sleep. But hearing it from his mouth feels different with her standing beside him.

She listens like it matters. Like any of this—our legacy, our fractured past—is something she wants to understand.

Reeve gestures across campus toward the old stone path that disappears into the woods. “There’s a temple out that way. You’ll see it on the expanded tour…”

Rey leans in, curious. Enthralled.

Eventually, he brings the conversation back to the mystery of the arch, and she steps closer to the stone—one foot away, maybe less. She stays to the side, out of the path of the freshmenstill rushing through, and lifts a hand toward the arch like she’s reaching for something precious. Her hand glides across the runes, moving up and down with the indentations.

She turns to Reeve and gives him a smile I’ve never seen before. It’s easy. Genuine. The kind of smile that warms people, that opens doors.

It pulls the air from my lungs. I don’t know why it hits so hard—only that it does.