The Father stepped down from the dais, each movement a psalm undone, his robes trailing like liquid starlight, his bare feet silent on the marble.
The room dimmed, the hymnstone's glow fading as if in submission.
"He has survived the upper scars. The surface wounds. The gentle echoes," the Father said, his voice cold as ash. "Let him taste their affection. Let him build his illusions."
The Gates of Aetherion groaned open with the sound of bending starlight, a song of splintered divinity unraveling into dread, their radiant arches pulsing with celestial hymns that fractured in the air like glass.
Through the cascading veil of sacred light stumbled a lone figure, his wings half-tattered and dripping with holy blood, their pearlescent feathers scorched and frayed from the fringe storms that tore at the edge of the known realms.
