"Come on, Nicole! He just got the fire pit started!"
Tyr's voice carried in from the backyard as I jogged out the back door, Crow tucked against my hip. The air still smelled like long road trips and borrowed pillows. We were finally home for a vacation, back in Tyr's town with his family and friends, and the boys had somehow snapped together a last-minute get-together in one of their group chats.
Typical. No planning, just vibes.
The wives were the ones surprised, not them.
We were leaving in a couple of days, so tonight felt like borrowed time. The twins were already down inside—second and third child finally asleep after their bedtime war. Crow, my last little headache, refused sleep on principle, so he came with me. Canu, on the other hand, had made his choice the moment we arrived.
Our eldest lay in Odin's lap, half asleep, being rocked like he'd been there his whole life.
The unspoken leader of their ragtag band of misfits sat by the fire pit in that beat-up camping chair, one arm curled protectively around Canu as he rocked his knees. Baldur had his kids piled on a blanket with Crystal, who was pretending not to be as soft as he was. The others were scattered around the yard, drinks in hand, already halfway into high-school stories.
For once, we finally got to see everyone unwind without the kids hanging off them.
Odin was quiet. He always was on nights like this—just accepting whatever fate he'd settled on for himself, never talking about it. His tenderness only ever slipped out with the children, or in rumors from people who'd known him before the Sea chewed through his heart.
Baldur and Crystal were twin souls, easy to spot even in the firelight. They'd found comfort in each other the same way Oceanus and Athena had. Recently married, already half-planning the next decade. Me and Tyr had been married long enough to call the last ten years "a warm-up."
"I swear the children love him," I muttered, nodding toward Odin as I tried to take the half-sleeping Canu back. My son fought it immediately, little fingers fisting in Odin's shirt.
Odin only smirked, resting a hand on the boy's back and rocking his knees again, lulling him deeper under.
"So when will it be your turn, Odin?" Baldur called, grinning like a shark. Same question as their last trip. Same tone. Everyone went quiet, the way they always did when someone poked at that particular wall. Even Tyr, off in his own world most nights, tuned back in.
"Depends on how life works out," Odin said. "I'm not against it. Just the way our generation goes about it."
Another half-answer. Another infuriatingly precise evasion.
Sometimes he was the rumored loved boy, the one kids instinctively trusted, the one who checked plates before handing out snacks and snuck them candy with a soldier's seriousness. The secret enforcer behind Tyr's steadier hand.
Other times he was five different people in one body. One day he drifted in his own world, unreachable. The next he and Tyr shared a language nobody else had the dictionary for. Everyone saw a different Odin. Every version of him respected boundaries like they were sacred law.
My husband thought he was hiding his helpful nature for long-gone friends. The stories said otherwise. This man refused help even at death's door, always slipping free at the last second. A truly devious person, if his lovers were to be believed.
Then the frozen rose on the patio table caught my eye.
A decoration Baldur had left from some winter event—fake frost, glass stem, pretty in the way cheap things tried too hard to imitate the real. Odin glanced up just as my gaze landed on it. That knowing little smirk tugged at his mouth, like he'd caught my thoughts mid-sentence, then he looked from me to the rose.
The fire pit flared as the paper and fuel finally caught. Flames roared higher.
Not a shred of fear crossed his face as he leaned the chair back the way he always did, Canu dead asleep against his chest. For a heartbeat the haunting black of his eyes flashed gold in the reflection of the flames—
—and the frozen rose turned to gold.
The world rang, bright and wrong.
Before I could breathe, the backyard, the laughter, the smoke, Tyr's voice—everything—shattered like glass.
I woke up.
No knot in my shoulders. No ache in my chest. No weight of the last year sitting on my lungs. Just the echo of that impossible, peaceful night burning behind my eyes.
There was, however, a literal weight on my chest.
A silver crystal ball I'd never seen before rested there, cold against my skin, catching the early light. A folded note was tucked beneath it.
I picked it up with numb fingers and read the single line written in a hand I didn't recognize, but somehow already knew.
I didn't want to wake you from such a peaceful dream.
— The bird of the forgotten one
False reality.
Perfect, fragile, already gone.