The house remained silent for a few seconds after Vergil stopped before the map. It was not a comfortable silence. It was the kind of silence that formed when everyone present realized that a line that seemed too personal, too intimate, too familiar, might be connected to something much larger. Frey was not only Freya's twin brother in that moment. He was a name circled at the center of ancient routes, passages to Helheim, and marks pointing to places that should no longer be accessible.
Sapphire walked to the table first, resting the spear against the wall before leaning over the maps. Her eyes moved along the lines with attention. She was not a specialist in Norse runes, but she was ancient enough to recognize patterns of war, escape, and concealment. Those were not notes from someone searching for a lost relative in ordinary desperation. They were organized traces, attempts to reconstruct movement through layers of secrecy.
"How long have you been following this?" she asked.
