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And why in all hells wasn’t he out there chasing after him? Why was he instead here, grasping at the memory of the man he loved like he was already dead, all because he’d made a promise to both Orpheus and the Empire then allowed someone else to decide for him which to keep?

Wood struck his fist, the desk cracking under his strength. “I didn’t know!” His voice echoed off the stone, repeating in his head. “I don’t want this! I just want him!”

So why didn’t I go after him? Why did I let them tell me I couldn’t? Why didn’t I at least try?

Why had he listened to others instead of himself, instead of following his heart?

To think a man like him was who the Empire wanted as king.

Stone hit his knees, then his hand. He shook too badly to hold himself up, forehead touching the stone a moment before he squeezed his eyes shut. Swathed in the darkness of his mistakes, the heat turned from a sting to a stab, and then he was crying. Shaking. Coming apart in the most wretched sense, all his frustrated impotence bottled up to the point of rupture, tearing a hole not in any ill-fated stage, but his own damn heart.

This must be how Orpheus felt when all the lies he’d depended on fell apart to reveal a brutal, agonizing truth.

He’d failed. Orpheus. Himself. The Empire and all the people within it. He’d failed.

You broke your promise to everyone.

You thought you had to be everyone’s hero, when you only want to be his.

So, it was there, on his knees for a life he’d let fall through his fingers, that Fenrir felt that rage slip away and something far worse take its place.

Grief.

He screamed. In the face of it all Fenrir screamed. A roar built in its echoes, louder and louder until the whole dungeon swelled with it. Screaming until his voice went raw, sound no longer coming because he had nothing left to give. All of it gone with the man he had sworn to protect.

I did this, when he’d thought he could protect everyone.

I did this, when he’d allowed others to define who he was, who he could be, how he should heal.

I did this, when he’d failed to honor what his heart had been telling him all along, and chose what he’d felt obligated to do, rather than what he knew to be right—for Orpheus and him.

I should have gone after Orpheus.

He should have fought for himself, rather than fighting for others, not because he didn’t care…but because, in the end, Fenrir wasn’t a hero.

He was simply a man.

The tears came harder than before, sobs replacing his screams. Wretched and awful, they dragged from his chest like his heart had actually broken, pieces crawling free of their own accord because Fenrir had kept them so tightly under lock and key. Not anymore. Now his heart spilled across the cold stones of a dungeon that served as a reminder of all the reasons he’d left the Gilded Palace behind in the first place, what he’d helped Orpheus escape and then allowed him to be dragged back into without putting up a fight.

I’m so sorry, Fifi.

He sought the cold stone beneath him like it was Orpheus’ perpetually cold palms finding his skin each morning they woke together, snow heaping against the window of their tiny house in the Stacks, Orpheus seeking his heat like Fenrir were steel to be tempered, rather than simply cold and greedy and unafraid to take what he wanted.

What he wanted…Orpheus had told Fenrir what he wanted, without question. Unafraid of it. Assured in his ability to put himself first, because he understood no one else would, not even Fenrir, even if that’s exactly what he’d promised. What he himself wanted.

Fenrir made a sound, rough and wet and desperate. The phantom ache of his missing arm pulsed, more alive than ever, but losing his sword arm was nothing more than an excuse. Another reason he had used to allow others to define what he was capable of. One he’d believed too, when his strength had failed to return after weeks of rest and distractions. A strength that had only rekindled when Fenrir…when he’d chosen for himself something that had felt right—felt good—for him.

He never would have found the strength to overthrow Lore if he hadn’t chased after Orpheus, despite years of quiet pining.

He never would have left those mines behind if Lore hadn’t presented a chance, an opportunity, to become the hero he always imagined he could be.

And losing his arm hadn’t kept him from helping Mercer. No, helping Mercer had led him to regaining his strength but also reaching Red in a desperate moment. A moment he’d been able to help her through enough to maybe make a difference. Because it hadn’t been fear on Red’s face when their call dropped. It’d been…it’d been hope.

How the fuck is your timing this good?

Maybe Fenrir wasn’t out of luck yet. Maybe he just had to follow, again, what his heart knew to be right.

Go after him.