Seven years. Seven years since Havenwood burned, since the sky ripped open and swallowed me whole, since Caelum… since Caelum died saving me. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime. Sometimes, like yesterday.
The ache in my left shoulder is a constant companion, a dull throb that sharpens with the damp or when exhaustion sets in. It's more than just scarred tissue; it's a physical anchor to the guilt, to the memory of his broken wings shielding me from the impact that should have been mine alone. Havenwood was ashes, Caelum was dust, and my heart… my heart learned to beat around a hollow space.
The two soldiers, Jarek and Lyra – I learned their names later – hadn't lied. They'd risked everything, deserting their posts, killing their own comrades, to deliver a wounded, half-conscious demon girl to the scattered remnants of the Mythic Resistance. Why? Remorse? A crisis of faith? I never got the full story. They disappeared soon after, swallowed back into the war-torn landscape of Aethelgard, leaving me with the nascent Resistance movement.
My found family. A collection of the hunted and the haunted, elves, dwarves, fetches, others like me with mixed or cursed blood, all fighting to survive the Ecclesiarchy's relentless purge. We lived in the shadows, in hidden bolt-holes beneath cities, in deep forest sanctuaries, constantly moving, always watching.
Tonight, the shadow was the dripping underbelly of Oakhaven City's old aqueduct system. The air hung thick with the smell of damp stone, stagnant water, and something vaguely metallic – rusted iron gratings, perhaps, or the lingering scent of old blood. Water dripped rhythmically from the vaulted stone ceiling, each drop echoing in the oppressive silence. My borrowed cloak, rough spun wool that scratched my chin, did little to ward off the chill.
Across the narrow tunnel, Kaelen watched the street grating above, his lithe elven form utterly still. Moonlight filtered down, striping his drawn face and glinting off the silver threads in his dark braid. He was my usual partner on these watches – quiet, observant, and one of the few who didn't seem overtly unnerved by the faint, unnatural warmth that still sometimes radiated from my skin when I was stressed or tired.
"Anything?" I whispered, my voice barely disturbing the air.
He shifted slightly, his pointed ear twitching. "Patrol passed. Two Templars, a Curate leading. Didn't slow down." He paused. "Another Screamer Cage went up in the Merchant Quarter an hour ago."
I closed my eyes, the familiar nausea churning in my stomach. Spirit-cages, the humans called them 'Screamer Cages'. Devices designed to trap and torment mythic spirits, their agonized cries serving as both warning and morbid entertainment. Another soul ripped apart, another piece of the world chipped away by the Ecclesiarchy's righteous hatred.
"Did you… feel anything?" Kaelen asked, his voice low. Elves had their own sensitivities, different from mine.
I focused, pushing past the constant thrum of my own banked fire, past the phantom ache in my shoulder. There was the usual city hum – fear, greed, desperation, a thousand sleeping minds. But beneath it… yes. A faint, high-frequency vibration of pain, quickly fading. Another light extinguished. "Faintly. Gone now."
My own power, the infernal fire inherited from a father I refused to claim , felt like a coiled serpent beneath my skin. For years, it had been a source of terror and self-loathing, inextricably linked to the destruction I felt I'd caused. But in the Resistance, I'd learned control, necessity forging discipline. I could summon bursts of blinding speed, an 'Inferno Dash' Kaelen called it, useful for scouting or escape. I could exhale a controlled plume of heat, not quite flame – not the raging 'Emotive Pyre' it threatened to be when my control slipped – but enough to melt ice or cauterize a wound in emergencies. My body was resilient, stronger, tougher than it looked , a trait that had saved my skin more times than I could count.
But the fire always simmered. Especially when grief or anger clawed at me. The memory of Caelum's still face, the sound of his wings breaking – those memories were tinder, always threatening to ignite the destructive blaze I fought so hard to contain. Sometimes, I feared the fire more than the Ecclesiarchy. It felt like a betrayal of his sacrifice, this destructive potential I carried within me.
"Relief arrives in an hour," Kaelen murmured, drawing me back to the damp present. "Then we report back to Commander Valerius."
Commander Valerius. A stern dwarf who ran our particular cell with gruff efficiency. He'd taken me under his wing, in a manner of speaking, after Jarek and Lyra left. Taught me how to fight, how to channel my speed, how to survive in this brutal world. He didn't trust easily, and he certainly didn't trust my heritage, but he valued competence. And I was competent. Years of survival had honed me into something lean, quick, and useful.
I nodded, pulling the cloak tighter. An hour. Just another hour in the shadows, listening to the city breathe its fearful dreams, the ghost of Caelum's sacrifice a cold weight beside the banked fire in my soul. Waiting. Always waiting. For the next patrol, the next mission, the next loss. Believing that the brightest light in my short life had been extinguished forever at the bottom of that ravine.
Hundreds of leagues away, under a sky bruised purple by an impending storm, another soul shaped by the Havenwood massacre moved through the night. But where Azara existed in the guarded community of the Resistance, this figure moved alone, a phantom of vengeance against the Ecclesiarchy.
He moved across the rain-slicked rooftops of the Cathedral City of Veritas, the very heart of the Ecclesiarchy's power. Not with the terrified scramble of the hunted, but with the predatory grace of the hunter. Rain plastered strands of stark white-gold hair to his temples, dripped from the sharp angle of his jaw. His eyes, the colour of glacial ice, scanned the streets below, missing nothing.
He was taller now, broader, honed by years of relentless battle into something imposing, weaponized. The inherent kindness that had once softened his features was gone, replaced by a chillingly impassive mask. This was Caelum. Or rather, what Caelum had become after clawing his way back from the brink of death, alone in that ravine.
He had woken hours after Azara was taken, pain a living entity within him. His wings were shattered, his body broken, but some spark of divine resilience, fueled by a desperate, primal will to live, had refused to let him die. Waking to silence, to the cold corpses of the soldiers, Azara gone… the assumption was immediate, agonizing. Captured. Tortured. Killed by the monsters who destroyed their home. The grief was absolute, quickly curdling into a white-hot rage that burned away his innocence, leaving behind only the bedrock of vengeance.
He bore the scars of that day, and many days since. Faint, silvered lines traced patterns across the magnificent span of his wings, marking where bones had knit back together, imperfectly. Flight was still possible, powerful even, but sometimes accompanied by a dull ache, a physical echo of his sacrifice. Other scars, thin and white, crisscrossed the skin of his arms and torso, souvenirs from countless clashes with Templars, Inquisitors, and their blessed weapons.
Tonight, his target was an Ecclesiarchy convoy transporting newly forged spirit-cages, destined for some outlying town to continue the purge. He tracked them easily, a silent shadow against the storm-darkened sky. He landed soundlessly on the edge of a high tower overlooking the convoy's route, rain sluicing over his dark leather armour. His wings, scarred but functional, folded tightly against his back.
Below, the procession crawled through the deserted streets – armoured wagons, mounted Templars, priests clutching glowing symbols. Caelum watched them, his expression unchanging, but a cold light flickered deep within his icy eyes. He felt no hesitation, no mercy. They were instruments of the power that had stolen everything from him – his home, his peace, Azara.
As the lead wagon passed beneath his perch, he dropped. He landed lightly atop the wagon's canvas cover, drawing twin blades forged from some dark, unholy metal – weapons specifically designed to harm celestial beings, ironically effective against the Church's holy warriors.
Before the guards could react, he was a whirlwind of deadly grace. His movements were precise, economical, honed by years of solitary warfare. He didn't waste energy on flourishes, only on lethal efficiency. Blessed steel sparked against his infernally-forged blades. Shouts of alarm were cut short by gurgles. Within moments, the guards atop the wagon lay dead or dying.
He sliced through the canvas cover, dropping inside onto crates packed with the cruel, intricate cages. A Templar inside lunged, swinging a blessed mace. Caelum sidestepped, his hand lashing out, palm flat. An aura of chilling judgment flared around him , and the Templar screamed, dropping the mace as his armour began to glow unnaturally hot, searing him from within.
Caelum ignored the scream, planting shaped charges onto the crates. He vaulted back out onto the rooftop just as alarms began to blare across the city. Below, the convoy ground to a halt in confusion and panic.
He allowed himself a grim, fleeting satisfaction as he triggered the detonator. Explosions ripped through the wagons, sending shards of metal and blessed components flying. The spirit-cages erupted in sympathetic detonations of stored energy, consuming the convoy in secondary blasts of white-hot light and tortured static.
He turned away from the destruction, melting back into the shadows as searchlights swept the rooftops. Another blow struck against the Ecclesiarchy. Another measure of vengeance exacted for Havenwood. For Azara. He felt nothing else. Not triumph, not relief. Only the vast, cold emptiness left by her absence, an emptiness he filled with the methodical destruction of their killers. He was a weapon forged in grief, aimed at the heart of the institution that had taken everything, believing the girl with fire in her soul was long lost to the ashes.