Zelos stood while his father, his brother, and his friend all looked at him with seriousness. Even the hammer where Ragnir resided had gone uncharacteristically silent, a sign of how grave the situation truly was. Zelos could feel the changes that had taken hold of Midgard while they were still in Jotunheim, and it confirmed his theory about the origin point.
"This is not my doing. Perhaps I technically killed the God of Light, but I replaced him immediately. Even now, I can feel his divinity coursing through my veins. This is what I meant earlier about the origin point. No matter what happened, the death of the God of Light would mark the beginning of Fimbulwinter. Even if I had not taken Baldur's divinity, his death as the God of Light was always going to happen, no matter the method, no matter who did it. One thing was certain: the God of Light needed to die," Zelos said, defending himself.
"Is this true?" Kratos asked, his voice as deep and even as always, turned toward Ragnir, who had remained silent through the exchange.
Ragnir took a moment before answering, as if weighing how much of the truth was safe to hand over.
"The World Tree is not as simple as that explanation makes it sound. There are things even we do not fully understand. But the idea is correct. Some things cannot be prevented, because they were already carved into her trunk. No matter what branches sprout from her, no matter how far one strays from the path, the original point remains the same. It is how she ensures the outcome she wants is always achieved, for the sake of the realms," Ragnir answered.
Kratos said nothing further, but the line of his shoulders eased slightly, as though a suspicion he had carried since Jotunheim had finally been confirmed rather than invented.
"Why would the World Tree want Ragnarok to happen?" Atreus asked, curiosity mixed with fear in his voice. He asked it for the same reason anyone else would have, if they knew what he now knew.
"The realms have reached a stagnation. Ragnarok exists to push our trajectory forward again. It is a new beginning for a new age of beings," Zelos answered.
"So everyone dies, so that something new can be born," Atreus said quietly, more to himself than to either of them. He did not sound convinced that the trade was a fair one.
"An answer like that is only one side of the truth. Do not try to oversimplify her intentions, or it will drive you mad. She spans every place and every point in time, and every outcome she reaches leads toward destruction and rebirth. What you said may be true, in its own way, but it is only a fraction of her whole truth," Ragnir said, as the four of them began their descent toward the place where Brok and Sindri had set up their newly opened shop.
"Where do you think the Giants went?" Atreus asked Zelos as they flew in silence, the question having burned in his mind ever since they left Jotunheim.
"Into the light," Ragnir said, cutting in before Zelos could answer. Both Zelos and Atreus turned toward him, confused, since this was the first time either of them had heard it put that way, Zelos included, despite all his knowledge from his past life and the games he had once played.
"That cannot be all of it. We were in Alfheim, and they were not there. But I could feel their presence in Jotunheim. They are not dead, yet they are not alive either, as if they are caught somewhere between the two," Zelos said, and the answer seemed to please Atreus, who nodded as though a piece of him had needed to hear that the Giants were not simply gone.
"That would be the magic the Jotunn use to preserve their souls. It is a magic that holds them inside a container of their own choosing, where they can shape the environment within it however they wish, so they may live somewhere that brings them the most peace. Your mother should have known of it, yet it seems she chose to enter the light herself instead," Ragnir answered.
"Where do the souls go once they are in the light? At first I assumed the light was converting them into a source of power. But when I went there myself, it looked more like the light was purifying them of something, and sending them onward to somewhere else. I could not sense where," Zelos said.
Ragnir was quiet for a moment, and even Atreus seemed to sense that the next answer would matter more than the ones before it.
"Perhaps it leads to the place where all magic began and where it all returns in the end. Every place comes from a single origin, and everything born of magic eventually finds its way back there," Ragnir said, beginning to explain further. "Call it the source, if you like. Even gods came from it once, long before they learned to call themselves gods."
Both Zelos and Atreus listened closely, hungry for more, but before Ragnir could continue, Kratos raised a hand and brought them all to a stop. Ahead, smoke curled steadily from a low chimney, and the ring of a hammer against metal carried faintly through the trees. They had arrived at the place where Brok and Sindri had set up their shop.
"We will speak of this again later," Kratos said, his tone leaving no room for argument. "For now, there is a hammer to fix."
Atreus fell into step beside Zelos, still turning the conversation over in his head. "Do you think Mother is happy, wherever the light sends her?"
Zelos did not answer right away. He thought of the pull he had felt inside the Light of Alfheim, the shape of something that had once been warm and was now something else entirely.
"I hope so," he said, and left it at that, because it was the only honest answer he had.
Zelos glanced at Ragnir, who had gone quiet once more, and wondered how much of what the old spirit had said was truth, and how much was only the fraction he had chosen to share. Some answers, he was beginning to understand, only led to more questions, and perhaps that was the point of asking them at all.
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