Lyra
Sleep came to her slowly, as if the night itself feared to touch her.
The rain that had begun with the angel's arrival had not stopped. It whispered against her windows like a thousand quiet confessions, threading through her thoughts until they became something other than her own.
When her eyes finally closed, the world around her changed.
The marble floor beneath her bare feet dissolved into a sea of white ash. The palace around her fell away, replaced by endless sky. And above that sky — wings.
They were not made of feathers, but of fire. Golden, searing, endless, each beat shaking the air with thunder. The wings stretched from horizon to horizon, their light burning the clouds to smoke.
Between them, a figure descended — tall, radiant, and terrible. His eyes glowed like molten moons, silver so bright they left trails of light when he moved. His hair was the color of stormlight, his face too perfect to be mortal.
She knew this was no dream born of her mind.
This was a vision.
And in that vision, he was coming for her.
Lyra tried to move, but her feet were bound by chains of light that coiled around her ankles. They pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat, each pulse echoing through the vast silence of the burning sky.
The figure landed before her — soundless, graceful, divine. When he spoke, his voice was both thunder and whisper.
> "You carry ruin within you."
She shivered. "Who are you?"
> "The end of what must end."
He raised his hand, and the fire of his wings flared brighter. The air trembled, the ash beneath her feet turning to molten gold. The chains around her glowed hot, searing her skin.
> "Do not fear, mortal queen. Fear is wasted on what has already been condemned."
Lyra's voice broke as she whispered, "Then why do you look at me as if you mourn me?"
For a heartbeat, his eyes softened. The fire around them dimmed. She saw — beneath the light, beneath the divinity — a shadow of sorrow, an emotion angels were never meant to feel.
> "Because even the condemned can be beautiful before they burn."
She stepped closer, though her body trembled. The light from his wings painted her skin in gold and crimson.
"Why must I die?" she asked. "If Heaven made me, why destroy me?"
> "Heaven does not create. It commands."
> "Then what are you, angel?"
He hesitated. The fire in his wings flickered, as though the question itself pained him.
> "Once, I was mercy. Now, I am obedience."
His hand brushed her cheek — warm, impossibly gentle. The touch sent light through her veins, and in that light she saw flashes — cities of glass in the clouds, rivers of starlight, angels kneeling in endless halls. And at the center of it all — him, bound by golden chains, kneeling before a throne of fire.
A voice echoed through the vision, not his, but vast and ancient:
"Do not let her live."
The vision shattered.
The sky turned black. The wings turned to smoke. The angel's face melted into shadow.
Lyra gasped and opened her eyes.
---
The world had not changed — and yet, it had.
The rain still fell, but heavier now, as if the heavens were weeping through her roof. The fire in the hearth had gone out. Only the faint blue glow from her amulet — a relic of her bloodline — lit the chamber.
She sat up in bed, breathing hard, her skin slick with sweat.
Her maid burst through the door moments later. "My Queen! The seers— they say the sky has burned again!"
Lyra threw back the sheets and rose. Her legs trembled, but she forced them steady. "Where?"
"The eastern forest, Your Majesty. The same place where the tremor began."
She did not need to hear more. The dream still pulsed inside her skull, the angel's words echoing like the last toll of a bell.
You carry ruin within you.
She dressed quickly, throwing on a dark cloak and boots. "Ready the horses," she commanded. "I'll see it myself."
The maid paled. "At this hour, my queen—"
"At this hour," Lyra said, fastening her cloak, "is when Heaven moves unseen."
---
Azrael
He had not meant to enter her dreams.
Angels, even fallen ones, walked easily through mortal sleep — the border between realms blurred when emotion called. But he had only meant to watch, not to touch. The moment his gaze had met hers across the palace wall, something within him had stirred — a tether between their souls, raw and ancient.
Now that bond pulsed through him, painful and sweet. He could still feel her heartbeat echoing faintly against his own.
Azrael stood at the edge of the forest where his descent had scarred the land. The crater still glowed faintly, its soil scorched black. Rain hissed as it struck the embers. Above him, the sky churned with restless clouds.
He was no longer certain why he lingered. His mission was clear — destroy the queen, sever the prophecy, return to grace.
But grace… what was it, really? The more time he spent beneath the mortal sky, the less he remembered its warmth. Heaven had always been light, but never life. Here, even in ruin, everything mattered.
He lifted his hand. A single feather — once white, now streaked with gray — drifted from his palm and fell into the mud.
"Am I decaying," he murmured, "or becoming?"
The question had no answer. Only the rain replied, steady and endless.
---
Lyra
By the time Lyra reached the forest, the storm had thinned to mist. The guards behind her muttered prayers under their breath, crossing themselves as they looked upon the charred crater.
It was vast — wide enough to swallow a tower, deep enough that the earth itself glowed faintly at the center. The trees surrounding it were burned to black silhouettes, their leaves gone, their bark turned to glass.
Yet in that ruin, something shimmered — faint, delicate, impossible.
Feathers.
Hundreds of them, scattered across the ground, glowing like embers beneath the rain.
Lyra dismounted and knelt, reaching for one. The moment her fingers touched it, a warmth spread through her arm, up to her heart. For an instant, she saw not the forest, but a sky filled with wings — and a face with eyes like molten moonlight.
She dropped the feather, heart racing.
The nearest guard rushed forward. "Your Majesty!"
"I'm fine," she said quickly, though her voice trembled. She rose and looked around. "No mortal could have caused this."
The seer who had come with her nodded grimly. "A celestial wound upon the earth. He was here."
"He?"
"The one who hunts you."
The seer drew symbols in the mud with trembling fingers. "My Queen, forgive me — but if he has already walked the mortal realm, your destiny has begun. The dream you spoke of— it was not just vision. It was contact."
Lyra looked again at the feather, now half-buried in the wet soil. "Then he saw me."
"And you saw him."
The seer's voice dropped to a whisper. "That is what frightens them most."
Lyra frowned. "Who?"
"The heavens, my Queen. For if the hunter sees the hunted and does not strike…" He looked up at her, eyes wide with both awe and dread. "…then the hunt becomes something else entirely."
---
That night, she returned to the palace, but rest eluded her. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw wings burning through clouds, and heard his voice — the angel who mourned her even as he vowed to end her.
She lit every candle in her chamber, as though light itself could hold back the vision. Yet the air still felt charged, the veil between sleep and waking too thin.
"Who are you, truly?" she whispered into the dark.
No answer came, only the faint rustle of feathers where none should be.
---
Azrael
He stood upon the highest tower of the abandoned chapel at the edge of Elaris, rain dripping from his cloak. Below him, the city lights flickered — fragile fires against the vast dark.
He could feel her presence now. Not merely her heartbeat or her dreams, but the rhythm of her thoughts, the weight of her soul pressing faintly against his own. It was… unbearable.
No angel should ever feel connected to a mortal like this. It was the kind of bond Heaven had burned entire realms to erase.
"Azrael," came a voice behind him — soft, cold, familiar.
He turned. Another angel stood there, halo faint beneath the rain — Serion, his superior, his executioner.
"I told you not to linger," Serion said. His face was carved from light and judgment. "She must die before her bloodline takes root."
Azrael said nothing.
Serion stepped closer, eyes narrowing. "You entered her dreams."
"How do you—"
"Her soul carries your mark now." Serion's lip curled. "You've already defied the order."
"I only looked."
"You felt," Serion said sharply. "You always were too curious about them."
Azrael's jaw clenched. "She is not the monster they claim. She heals, she saves. She—"
"She exists," Serion interrupted. "That is enough."
The rain fell harder. For a long moment, neither spoke.
Finally, Serion sighed. "You know what happens to angels who love what they should kill."
Azrael's voice was barely a whisper. "Yes."
"Then finish this," Serion said. "Or Heaven will finish you."
When Serion vanished, the rain stopped, as if even the storm feared what would come next.
Azrael looked again toward the palace, where faint light still burned in one window. Her window.
He knew she hadn't slept. He could feel it.
And he, too, could not rest.
---
Lyra
She sat by her window long after midnight, watching the rain fade into mist. Her reflection stared back at her — pale, sleepless, haunted.
The feather she had taken from the forest lay on her desk, wrapped in silk. It no longer glowed, but she could still sense warmth from it, faint and steady.
When she closed her eyes, she heard his voice again: Because even the condemned can be beautiful before they burn.
She shuddered. Not from fear, but from the strange ache those words left in her chest.
Some part of her — the part that carried the same ancient grace Heaven despised — felt as if it knew him. As if their souls had touched once before the world began.
The thought was madness.
Yet, when she looked out into the night, she saw it — far away, on a distant rooftop, a flicker of light, the faint outline of a man cloaked in gray.
He did not move. He only stood there, watching.
And even through the veil of rain, she felt no terror. Only inevitability.
The angel had found her.
And though she did not yet understand why, she whispered into the darkness — not as a queen, not as prey, but as someone who had seen her fate in flame and moonlight:
"Then come for me, angel. Let us see which of us Heaven truly fears."
---
Azrael
From the rooftop, he heard her.
Not the words, but the pulse behind them — defiance, sorrow, longing. The music of a soul that refused to bow.
He should have drawn his blade then. Ended it.
But instead, he whispered to the night:
> "I already have."
And above them, the stars flickered, as if unsure whether to bear witness or avert their gaze.