Days passed.
Freya remained by her late husband's grave until every tear in her eyes had dried out, until nothing else came out no matter how long she stayed there, staring at the mound of earth beneath the storming sky.
She did not speak much. She did not eat. She only knelt there in silence, her fingers resting against the cold soil as if some part of her still could not accept that the life she had known, no matter how painful, no matter how suffocating, had truly ended.
Max did not disturb her.
He sat on a broken pillar not far away, watching lightning strike the ground again and again beyond the ruined citadel. Each flash split the dark clouds apart for a heartbeat, painting the shattered stones in pale blue light before the world fell back into gray silence.
He wondered how it would feel to control lightning.
