After returning from the Sacred Island, Frey was stunned to see his counterpart, Prince Aegon Valerion, alive and well.
He had thought he’d killed him ..finished it. Instead, Frey found that Aegon would remain a thorn in his side for longer yet. Their struggle had been written to continue, and no one knew where it would lead.
Cornered and forced to decide, Frey had been a breath away from doing the unthinkable ..killing all those people to bring the prince down .. showing his full readiness to sacrifice them and feed the Blood Path with their souls.
It would have been a point of no return. But Uriel’s last-second intervention prevented it.
Clinging to him, binding him with her chains, Uriel carried him into the sky while Snow followed, keeping them away from where Aegon and the others stood.
The prince had managed to draw most of the Empire’s main strength to his side .. and to turn them against Frey. In many eyes, Frey was nothing but a blood-thirsty monster.
More monster than hero.. and the way he fought only reinforced that belief.
In the end, Frey was saved.
Not from his enemies. Not from Aegon.
From himself.
He was spared from making that dark choice ..and he owed it to his friends.
Resting against Uriel’s chest, Frey looked at her for a while before closing his eyes, a wry smile tracing his lips.
"No need to hold me so tight. I’m not going anywhere," he said calmly, trying to make Uriel release him. She refused.
"Impossible. I won’t let go until we’re far enough away."
"And just how far is ’far enough’?" Frey asked, laughing.
"As far as it takes!!" Uriel shot back, flustered.
She flew in front with Frey, while Snow trailed behind to ensure no one ambushed them.
He was terrifyingly strong now .. after opening his Path, fending off the likes of Maekar and Sir Alon had become possible for him. Thanks to that, Uriel and Frey could pull away cleanly.
Once they had put real distance behind them, the oppressive haze around Frey lightened .. some of the killing intent he had poured at Aegon finally ebbing.
Even so, the tension never left Uriel.
"We could just use my teleportation ability instead of all this aimless flying, you know," Frey said. Uriel shook her head.
"You might use it to go back there and start a fight. So—no."
"Your logic’s strange. If I truly wanted to fight, you wouldn’t have been able to stop me in the first place ..and you know it," Frey answered with a soft laugh. Uriel scowled.
"I don’t know what I should do, Frey... I really don’t."
As they flew in uneasy quiet, Uriel admitted what was on her mind.
"You really meant to kill all those people I’m sure of it. Your face then... it was the same one I saw when you butchered those terrifying numbers of Ultras."
"That version of you... it frightens me."
Listening, Frey narrowed his eyes, remembering the mountains of corpses he himself had made while following the Blood Path.
"You’ve always walked in darkness. From the start, it’s been there in you .. by degrees. And even with that dark nature, you were still the Frey I knew .. the same fractured soul that fights again and again to survive, bearing every kind of pain."
"No matter what happened or what your hands did, you didn’t change .. you remained that same person, that same striver. But this time... had you really done it there, Frey, I felt it for the first time..."
Bitterly, Uriel voiced what she had sensed in those scant moments when Frey nearly crossed the line.
"I felt I would lose you. If you’d done it, you wouldn’t have been the same person anymore."
People’s choices decide their fate ..and how the world sees them.
For Frey, who was ready to sacrifice so much to gain power, perhaps this sacrifice would have gone far beyond the bounds... turning him into another kind of monster.
The very monster Liora, the Saint of Dawn, had warned her about.
Hearing Uriel’s words, Frey wasn’t surprised by her line of thought; he had expected such a reaction from the start.
"To be honest, I’ve always found the idea of death... comforting. Even delightful."
"Thinking my life could end at any moment—it brought with it a sense of freedom I’d always lacked. Freedom from the horrors and terrors this life kept throwing at me... But since I didn’t die, I’m forced to face those horrors ..and pass through them."
"To do that, I need to sacrifice a lot... and of the many things I’ve given up so far, few remain ..and I am one of those few."
As the two descended slowly from the sky and set down on the slope of a distant hill, Frey smiled at Uriel and opened his heart.
"As you can see, Uriel, I don’t mind. I don’t mind sacrificing myself ..or losing my humanity and the image you all hold of me. I don’t mind, so long as I achieve my aim. So long as I win in the end ..nothing else matters."
Hearing that, Uriel remembered fragments of the visions that had haunted her in the past.
Visions of a future where Frey appeared in a form she had never imagined ..an image of a cold monster marching over a horrifying number of corpses, paving his way with fire and blood.
Perhaps the Frey before her now reflected the seeds that would lead to that dark image she feared.
If he kept walking the path he’d chosen, he would reach that future sooner or later.
And what kind of future would that be?
Frey did look truly powerful in that future self ..but at what price?
He had shown complete readiness to do whatever it took to gain power. If the price turned out to be the lives of those around him..
her life, or Snow’s, or anyone dear to him..
would Frey pay it? Would he hesitate?
The Frey of now did not seem like someone who would make that choice... but if the slaughter continued and his enemies grew stronger, it would only be a matter of time before he lost the last thing holding him back.
To become a lone monster of overwhelming power... but alone, with no one.
"I don’t want that kind of future for you," Uriel said. Frey shook his head.
"Then you shouldn’t stay near me. I’m not the hero you should be supporting."
He stepped back to put distance between them..but Uriel caught his face at once, stopping him from slipping away.
Erasing the space between them, she stole a deep kiss he never expected .. throwing her weight into it.
It wasn’t the first time Frey had kissed a girl, but Uriel’s lips carried a different taste .. and with that act she made her stance clear without words.