"So I completed the mission?"
He was the one speaking, but the question was aimed at me as we stood together before the Astral Tear to Earth—the very same wound this man had sacrificed half his divinity to seal.
"Yes," I answered. "You did a good job, Odin, and now it's time to rest. You might not have foreseen this part of you being reignited just to say goodbye. But even I, as Death, must reward a man who'll carry the future on dying shoulders."
He chuckled at that, a dry sound, and looked at me with a sadness that didn't belong on a sun's face.
"Tell me," he pressed, eyes turning to the edge of the Astral Barrier that now protected Earth, "does he truly find rest at the end of all this? Did I complete my mission, or did I fail?"
The barrier pulsed in the distance where my own divinity had replaced the hole humans had forced open. After chasing down an Enlightened one and paying the cost, even this man's act of sealing that breach had been nothing more than a response to his compatriots' foolishness.
"You will see the result when you return home," I said. "To the Void. Death doesn't mingle lightly with humanity. Yet you exist on a cusp that's already passed away. I've only given a fraction of my domain for you to exist long enough to say goodbye. That is the only honor I can bless you with without ruining your own plans."
His eyes lit up at that—realization, understanding—but he forced it back down, still mortal enough to fall into madness and waste this last bit of time if he stared too long at the truth.
"Thank you, brother," he whispered. "For doing what I could not."
He bowed his head, then turned and stepped into the portal, ignoring the fatal wounds still bleeding across his body. War-torn and missing an arm, he walked forward smoking his cigarette, letting Death guide his path.
⸻
"You can quit playing dead, Odin. I know better than anyone that nothing Earth puts in your body could keep you asleep unless you wanted to."
I opened my eyes, searching my surroundings for the voice I once called lovely.
The lights of the hospital room annoyed me instantly, harsh and sterile. I let my gaze slide to the side, to the corner where Crystal sat, cloaked behind a veil of astral energy to hide herself. The whole room was wrapped in silence.
A small mark of her mastery, improving just like I'd expected from the notes I left her. Most likely from the collection I built specifically for her. Where my eyes held nothing but annoyance for the world, hers still burned with that unyielding fire desperate to force compromise out of impossible situations.
"What do you want?" I asked. "Clearly you're not here to ask for forgiveness. I'd like to conserve as much energy as possible until I see my mother. So make it fast, woman."
I didn't bother sitting up. I just closed my eyes again.
"Where is he?" she asked. "The younger you? I know he's running around, and although I can't tell which one is realer than the next until I see him, you're clearly on death's door. W—"
She cut herself off. Even she couldn't look at my body and pretend it didn't scare her.
"Was it chaos," Crystal asked again, voice steady this time, "or Tyr?"
I opened my eyes and met hers after that question.
"I don't know," I said. "Whether you believe me or not wouldn't stop you from suspecting I'm lying."
I let my eyes close once more.
"I'm just here to say bye," I finished. "Sadly not to you."
The surrounding astral energy shifted at my will, and with as little effort as breathing, I shattered the veil she'd wrapped herself in. Her barrier broke apart in silence, its pieces collapsing toward me as I refined the same energy into a much smaller shell that wrapped tightly around my own body instead.
Her work, my control. A reminder—for both of us—of exactly where we stood.
⸻
By the time I reached the car, the hospital's too-bright lights were finally behind me. I slid into the back seat and shut the door, only to find Teresa staring at me like she'd just watched a god fall out of the sky.
Wide eyes. Pressed lips. A dozen questions held behind her teeth.
"Just ask," I said, fastening my seatbelt. "You're going to anyway."
She hesitated, then blurted, "So… you and Odin—"
"Yes, we were lovers," I cut in, before she could stumble all over it. "But that's been over since before the seal truly went in place. Just old feelings that broke over time in the Sea."
I reached for the water bottle in the cup holder and took a slow drink, giving her a second to swallow the image she clearly hadn't been prepared for.
"People break," I added. "Even the legendary ones."
Teresa looked down at her hands, thumbs worrying the edge of her sleeve. "It just… explains some things," she said quietly. "The way you act around his notes. Like how I keep trying to get Johnathon to let me play hero and he refuses to acknowledge my abilities."
I snorted softly. "You don't need his acknowledgment to be dangerous. You just want it."
She chewed on that for a moment, then pushed forward, because Teresa never stayed soft for long.
"So what does that mean," she asked, "for this younger version? Or a potential Tyr? We still don't know who exactly came back, besides him calling himself Ten. That place I saw was really weird regardless."
I tapped my finger against my thigh as she spoke, mentally replaying every word.
"What place did you see?" I asked. "And why Ten? I thought Nicole called him Tyr."
I kept my tone even, but in the back of my mind I was already factoring in Artemis' emotional state, the stress she'd been under since the Tear reopened, and how much that could've warped what she thought she experienced.
Teresa swallowed, eyes drifting out the window as she reached back for the memory.
"Umm… when I cast an illusion," she said slowly, "apparently I use memories from the target's mind. Although I've never felt one so alive like that before."
Her hands lifted slightly as she spoke, sketching the scene in the air.
"Stars collapsing," she said, "as he lay in the lap of an angel who braided his white hair using those rings. They're probably all hers."
The image hung between us, heavy and sharp. An angel. Rings. White hair. Ten.
My jaw tightened.
A new possibility slid into place in my head, one I didn't like at all.
Odin's "son" running wild with a mission, formed from our choice to abandon the father. Not a child by blood—worse. A successor. A vessel shaped under Death and the Sea, carrying Odin's unfinished work in a younger body with less restraint.
A global-level threat if he'd been baking in the Sea the way we'd always hoped the second generation would, someday, by choice.
I exhaled through my nose, decision already made.
"Teresa," I said, "tell the driver to change directions. Society HQ."
She blinked, then snapped back to the present and fumbled for the intercom.
"We need to speak to The Giver," I continued. "Also call Johnathon and tell him to come as well."
She nodded quickly, already scrolling through contacts.
I was already raising my own phone to call Baldur.
If this 'Ten' was what I thought he might be, this wasn't just a missing-person case, or an anomaly from a reopened Tear.
This was a new variable in Odin's plan—one none of us had ever voted on.