Faye sponged Atreus down with a wet cloth while his fever raged on. Water from the cloth evaporated from his skin in waves of steam, and Faye's hands felt hot, scalded, as she worked. The floorboards rattled and groaned as Kratos dragged their wooden tub inside, and began filling it with buckets of water.

"Ready," he said.

Faye tested the water with her hand, nodded in approval, and lowered Atreus into the tub, keeping his head propped between her hands while Kratos crouched on the opposite side. For several long minutes nothing happened, but then Faye felt the fever slowly recede. A few minutes more, and Atreus began to stir, his eyes flickering open.

"Mother?"

"Drink this," Faye said, snatching the brief moment of awareness as an opportunity to tip a healing tonic down his mouth. He took a few sips and spit out the rest, which was still better than nothing.

"It tastes awful," he groaned.

"That is how you know it works," Faye assured him, elated that he was conscious enough to complain. Then she realized that he felt chill and clammy beneath her hands. The minutes dragged on, hope throbbing in her breast faded as his skin grew icy and cold. His skin felt like that of a corpse, like there was no life left in him at all. Faye tossed her head in disgust and began to haul him out.

Kratos took her wrist in protest, to stop her, but flinched in surprise when his arm brushed by their son's chilled skin. He released her, and Faye lay Atreus out on the blankets on the floor. The fever roared back to life, rushing in like a blast of heat from the bellows of a forge Water steamed off the boy's skin right before their eyes and rolled across the cabin as a warm fog.

What. The. FUCK. Faye rocked back onto her heels.

Kratos stared at her expectantly, his body tensed to move, to take action.

"Maybe… it was too cold to be useful," she said, tapping the tub with her knuckles. "Try mixing it with boiling water, so it feels tepid."

Kratos scuffled towards the hearth to obey, while Faye sponged Atreus in cold water.

And then once he is near his father, he will get worse. Much, much worse, Hyndla echoed in Faye's ears. Nothing you do will make him better.

They kept at it for hours, Atreus oscillating wildly between pouring off heat like a second hearth, or growing so cold, he felt like a piece of meat left to chill in their cellar. Faye cycled back through her entire repertoire of healing songs and herbal remedies, none of them having an effect. Every bout left Kratos and Faye wheeling with confusion and despair, and they steadily lost ground as the night wore on. Their son's breathing grew ragged and shallow, marked by gasps and rattles. He slipped intermittently in and out of consciousness, his eyes flashing with fear and confusion every time they flickered open.

And then, unless you bring him to us the same way you visited us before, you are going to watch your son, your little one, die in agony, Hyndla repeated, her voice raking paths through Faye's mind. Are you really just going to watch it happen, when you know exactly how to stop it?

Midnight arrived. Atreus lay on a pile of furs on the floor, skin grey and damp. Faye knelt by him, staring at him with dulled eyes. At some point during the night she had run out of fear and grief, leaving behind a yawning hole inside her gut that sucked out all feelings. Weariness soaked through her bones, weighing down her limbs and head with such burden, she wanted nothing more to sink into an endless sleep.

Kratos paced the room like a caged wolf, his breath wheezing in his chest, his eyes fixed on Atreus and Faye. As he reached the corner of the southwest wall, head turned back over his shoulder, he bumped into a stack of clay storage pots, knocking them onto the ground with a clatter. As he lapped the room again, he marched straight through the pots, heedlessly kicked one, and sent it rolling across the floor to smash into pieces against the far wall. A few minutes later, he walked through the same area and shattered another. He did not notice.

Then Atreus started having seizures. The first and second ones were short, too subtle for Kratos to see from across the room. Faye buried her face in her hands, crying quietly while the first two seizures passed. The third one was loud and long, accompanied by convulsions and load moans. Kratos lunged for him, but Faye slowed him with out outstretched hand.

"There is no need to hold him down," she said dully, her voice muffled by her fingers. "It is a seizure. The only thing we can do is keep him from hitting something, and wait for them to pass."

"Faye," he pleaded, "what do we do now?"

"Now? Now we…we…" her voice trailed off. The Aurora Silkwing moth fluttered back and forth across the kitchen, drawing her wandering attention.

Kratos tugged her elbow, a little bit too hard, to bring her attention back.

"He cannot take this much longer," he said, voice cracking. "How do we make this stop?"

Her husband's eyes stayed locked on hers, expecting her to have one more trick, one more long-hidden skill that she could brandish.

It is time, Faye, the voices whispered. They swirled around her in shadows, tempting her. Bring Loki to the Souls of the Slain. We will purge this influence from him and end this pain. You have done well to bring him this far. We will do the rest. Your child will live and you will see him grow strong. Administer the betony and Glowcrest mushrooms, and he will come to our halls. We will heal him, and Loki will awaken up stronger than ever. More powerful than ever. Your child will return to you.

"I have one last ritual to try," she said. "It is dangerous, but… it will work."

"Yes," he said, rapt with attention. "What is it?"

With elation, she realized they could heal him, they were going to heal him. Relief flooded over her. Atreus was going to survive. She was not going to have to sit here and watch him die. He would awaken, and she would have her boy back. Maybe he would be a little bit different after the ritual, but children were filled with change anyways. Prophesy had little to say about Loki much before Ragnarok, and there was nothing about visiting the Souls of the Slain that would deny Atreus a happy and peaceful childhood at Faye's side. They would spend years and years together, living on in the wilderness and watching the cycles of the taiga. She would see him grow, and run, and learn. Perhaps later, when it was time for him to pick of the mantle as savior of the Jotnar, Atreus would fall dutifully in line with Loki's scripted fate, but that seemed so far away and so unimportant compared to the limp form lying before her.

"I will put him into a trance, send him to visit the spirits of my ancestors. They may be able to heal him."

Kratos nodded, eyes flashing with relief. Like this was the answer he had known she was withholding, the last trick he had been so certain she had.

"On with it, then," he said. "There is no hope, without danger."

The look he gave her was one of absolute trust. She squirmed beneath it.

"I need to tell you something," she said. "This ritual, it will work. But… it will make him different."

NO! the spirits shrieked in her ears. He will lead you astray. Do what you must!

"How different?" Kratos asked, frowning.

Faye struggled with the answer. Now that she had resolved to complete the ritual, she did not want anything to stop her. No matter what the consequences were, she could handle them, figure them out later But that look of trust in her husband's eyes was more than she could bear. She knew that if she completed the ritual, Atreus would survive, but at the cost of his own free will.

"In order to heal him, something else is going to have to come into his mind, "she admitted. "I am not sure he would really be himself, any more, afterwards."

"Is there a way to protect him from it?"

Freya was a mother so terrified of fate, she cursed her son to a life devoid of feeling.

"No," she said, despair settling into her heart. "I have done this ritual before, and know how to protect myself. I do not think I could protect him. He will come back with their influence, with their wants."

"Then do not do it," Kratos said, a scowl deepening over his face. "Promise me, you will not do it."

The spirits shrieked in rage in her ears. Panic clawed down through Faye's throat and tore at her bowels. She should have lied, should have said something else, anything else, other than the truth. But Kratos, more than anyone else, knew the cost of making deals with powerful beings.

"I promise," she said.

So that was it, then. There was nothing else to do other than wait for the slow and bitter end. She shuffled forward on her knees, took her son's head into her lap, and began to sponge him over again. The emptiness returned to her gut, the feel and scent of the room fading to the feel of cold ash. Inside her head, the spirits shrieked with rage, and Faye felt the sour taste of partial victory against them. Atreus would die, but he would never be a puppet for the Giants or a pawn for the gods.

Kratos resumed his frantic pacing around the room. Sweat poured from his face, and the muscles of his shoulders rippled with tension. He smashed a third pot by accident, stared down at it in disdain, then pulverized the pieces to powder beneath his foot. He knocked over another stack, on purpose, and began to crush those. Faye made no move to stop him. The pots were not particularly valuable, and even if they had been, she was far past caring.

If Atreus had been lucid enough to watch, he probably would have been shocked by his father's anguish. On her part, Faye was not surprised at all. She would expect no different from him. Kratos not like Atreus, and very much did notlike being around him. But he did love him as his child. Now, he was reliving one of the worst days of his life in slow motion, and worst of all, could do nothing about it. It was not something he needed to see agin. Nothing he should ever have to live twice.

"Kratos," she said softly, tracking him on his erratic path through the cabin, "this…could go on for a few more hours. You might not want to watch this. I do not think seeing this will be good for you."

He did not answer her, or give any indication he had heard her at all. His eyes rolled wildly in his head as he made another lap around the sleeping quarters.

Faye began to hum "Memories of Mother" again, mostly to calm herself and make another attempt at finding an antidote, no matter how far fetched. As she restarted the verse, Kratos paused by the sleeping quarters, some of the tension slackening from his shoulders. Interesting. Was it the song? Normally she had to be touching him for it to do anything so obvious.

Experimentally, Faye repeated the song again, but dropped some of the lower resonant tones that made it a true healing song. To his ears, the tune would probably sound the same without them. As she dropped the resonant tones, Kratos resumed his wild path throughout the cabin. She added the resonance tones back, and he paused again.

At the top of the verse, she began to sing the words aloud, her voice sounding reedy and small.

"Fylg minni leið

Þig til sannleikans ber

Æskulok þín eini harmur minn er

Rými honum gef

Brotinn andi hans er

Síðar mun sjá, hann treysta mun þér

Fylg minni rödd"

He crossed the room and sat down next to her, so they were leaning against each other. She slipped an arm around him and dropped the notes low so they would vibrate through her chest.

"Er þér lýsir um nótt

Hann þarf þinn styrk

Þú þarft hjarta hans frjótt

Liðnu skal gleymt, ekkert fleira mun bætt

Hartans hvert sár mun saman fá grætt

Fylg minni ást

Fylg minni ást"

Her husband's breathing slowed and he relaxed, entering a type of waking trance. The panic was gone, leaving behind a type of deep sorrow etched over his face and the slump of his shoulders. A type of weariness and resolve. It was the first time in decades the song had much effect on him. It was not much, but perhaps Faye could make these final hours go a little bit more peacefully for her husband.

"We have not tried everything, yet," he said, voice calm and sober. "Try something else."

She blinked at him in surprise and shook her head.

"Kratos… that ritual was the last idea I had."

He took her by the hand and searched her face.

"You always have something else," he said, almost reverently. "Every time, you have found the right thing to do."

The song had put him in a type of hypnosis, she decided. It was soothing his nerves, offering him some relief, and inducing a type of whole-body calm. He was speaking to her like she was some type of sage, when she was nothing of the sort.

"If I were back among my own people, someone else would know, someone else could help," she said. Her real people, not the corrupted husks that were left behind. "But here, I can only…" she gestured vaguely at the blankets, the tub of water, the discarded tonics.

"You must try something else," he persisted. "I know it will work."

Damn healing song was working a little bit too well.

"Kratos," she said, squeezing his hand. "We do not have anything else left. I have given him every medicinal herb that may be relevant. I - " she stopped.

That was not true.

She disentangled herself from her family and went back to her kitchen, waved away the Aurora Silkwing moth, and pulled out the drawer of small favors that she had passed back and forth over the years with her tentative friendship with Freya. A piece of boar tusk, a short leather cord , a piece of crystal, a dragon's tooth. And a bundle of mysterious herbs that may or may not have come from Vanaheim whose function was unknown. For all she knew, it was herbal tea. Or a laxative. Or, she thought with a shudder, a poison sent from Odin.

"What is that?" Kratos asked.

"I am not sure. A… friend gave it to me a long time ago."

"What does it do?"

Faye looked uneasily between the herbs, and between her son. She had no idea what the herb was, no idea how to prepare it. It did not seem like a wise idea to start feeding her child random doses of a mysterious plant given to her by a goddess who was the wife of her sworn enemy. She had only meant the goddess once, and then she had been disguised in the form of a hawk. The two women were suspicious of each other, building a cautious alliance that was wrought with mutual suspicion and wariness. Faye replayed her short meeting with Freya in her mind, scouring every gesture, every movement. Did she trust this woman, this goddess, to gift her the herbs in good faith?

"I do not know," she said. "I suppose we are about to find out."

Faye took the mysterious gift from Freya and crushed a leaf between her fingers. She inhaled deeply, capturing the acrid, bitter scent in her nose. Then she chewed one of the leaves, pressing it firmly around her gums and teeth. It made her mouth tingle, so probably she should heat it first. It was not oily, so she should probably boil it into tea instead of burning it for fumes. Atreus could not swallow liquid, so she would add gelatin and reduce it to a gel after boiling and just hope it could dissolve in his mouth, without him needing to swallow. Just the leaves, or should she do the stems as well? No time to test that, she would use the entire plant. How much to start with?

She set to work while Kratos hovered nearby, caught somewhere half way between her work and their son lying on the floor. After she had reduced the first batch, she placed a thumbnail sized portion of the reduced, gelatinized sludge on the edge of the spoon. She offered the spoon to Kratos.

"Can you eat this, please?"

Kratos recoiled, eying it with suspicion.

"I want to see if it poisons you, before I give it to Atreus. I have-"

He swiped the spoon from her and ate the sludge.

She had been about to say she had already tested it on herself, but apparently Kratos did not care about the risk.

"Now what?" he asked.

"I am not sure," she admitted. "I just want to see what happens."

Five minutes later, Kratos did not keel over and die, which was generally a good sign and perhaps the only clue she would get.

She started Atreus with the same dose she gave Kratos, which did nothing to ease the cycle of fever and seizures. She doubled the dose, and the fever abated for a few minutes before returning. She doubled the dose again, and it helped. It helped a lot. The convulsions subsided, the fever ebbed away to a mild flush, the labored breathing settled to a steady and easy rhythm. Then before dawn it started over again, every bit as bad as it had been in the early hours of the night, if not more violent. Faye doubled the dose yet again, and it subsided. But that was it. They were out. She had used the entire plant, save for a single stem she kept for identification.

As daylight broke, Faye sat on the floor, twirling the last stem of the herb between the fingers of one hand, and stroking her son's hair with the other. He dozed fitfully across her lap. The preternatural fever had finally abated, but he was still incoherent and now massively dehydrated, unable to swallow any liquids. Kratos sat at her shoulder.

"We need more," she said, holding out the stem to Kratos. "He is better, for now. But if it starts again…" she shook her head. "We need more."

Kratos took it from her and examined it, memorizing every detail. Faye was not entirely sure it was about the plant, or if it was about Freya. Twice now, a small gift from the Witch of the Woods had saved Atreus from certain death under circumstances no one could have predicted or known. Somehow, Freya and Atreus were intertwined with each other.

"I will go now," Kratos said. "Where?"

"No," she said, plucking it back from him. "You will not be able to find it. It - it is very, very hard to find. I cannot describe it. It will have to be me."

He answered first with silence, grinding his jaw. His eyes settled on their son.

"Atreus is very fragile right now. He needs… he would do better with you."

Faye twirled the stem again, staring at the orange and black patterns. The voices of the Souls of the Slain were still enraged with her, still screaming at her, trying to compel her to stay. He is the source of the corruption, Faye, the voices sneered at her. The image of her husband morphed before her eyes, turning again into a twisted form with long fangs and gnarled fingers. You are turning Loki over to death.

Faye had lost some battle against them last night, given them a type of victory when she had almost agreed to turn Atreus over to them. Their influence over her had reached a new peak, and was going to keep growing. How long could she outrun them? Kratos had been her only tie back to sanity, the only one with enough good sense left to not turn their son's soul over to become the plaything of vengeful spirits.

Instead of answering with words, Faye raised to a crouch, lifting Atreus with her. She gestured with a nod, indicating Kratos should take her place. He did so reluctantly, and offered a startled snort in protest as she lay Atreus across his lap.

"This is the safest place for him, now," she said. "I would not leave him anywhere else."

Kratos froze in place, his eyes wide and his arms rigid. He stared at their son like a crystalline vase that might shatter if he moved too quickly. Atreus twitched and started to moan.

"Faye?" Kratos said, a hint of panic in his voice.

She took his hand, and guided it to cup their son's face. The boy's head nearly disappeared beneath his father's hand.

"It is alright. We are right here," she said, pressing her husband's hand against the boy's face.

Atreus settled again. Faye stood up, and began to wind her hair into a tight braid.

"I might take a while," she said. "I will probably not be back until tomorrow. He desperately needs water, that is his biggest problem now. Talk to him, even when he is like this. It helps more thank you might think. He needs you, now."

Kratos grunted in assent and nodded, not daring to move too much or speak too loudly.

Faye made her preparations and was ready to leave within minutes. Kratos stayed rooted where she had left him, frozen in the same awkward position as still as a statue, save for his thumb rubbing slow circles against their son's cheek. It was not going to be an easy day for him, tasked to sit still and wait while danger loomed overhead.

As Faye turned back for one last item from the kitchen, the Aurora Silkwing moth fluttered by her hand. Impulsively, she ensured it in caged fingers, and brought it close to her face. There were stories about these moths, stories about how they had perfect vision and hearing and magical properties of their own.

"May I borrow your eyes, little one?" she whispered.

The moth's eyes flashed with gold light, and for brief moment, Faye saw herself through its eyes. She released it and it fled to the rafters. Without any ideas as to whether she could actually scry through the moth or not, she decided against telling Kratos. It was just an idea, an experiment, to watch for any signs that the Souls of the Slain might have gained influence on Atreus in her moment of weakness the night before.

Faye set out into the woods at a run. The deep cold had returned, puddles of an early spring now frozen in hard sheets. She ran up the same bald-topped hill where she and Kratos had walked the day before, then paused for a moment to scan the sky. To her great fortune, she spotted Jophie circling the sky. Faye whistled to her, offering a fistful of minced caribou meat. Jophie alighted on her outstretched arm, digging her talons into the fabric of her sleeve, and fed.

"I need your help," Faye said, as the falcon finished eating. "I must speak with Freya. I need you to pass a message to her through your sister."

I WILL NOT GO! Jophie shrieked, and launched from her arm.

Faye had expected this response. Falcons. Typical. She snatched Jophie by the talons and held her firmly in one fist, fixing a jess to her legs with the other and sliding a hood over her head as the falcon screeched and battered at her.

"I think I can convince you this will be worth your time. I will give you all of the eyeballs you can eat until one of us dies. But until we come to an agreement, you will be staying with me."

Her unwilling messenger safely trussed up, Faye continued on her journey to the Witch of the Woods.

Author's notes: bonus points if you recognize and can identify the song! :)