He waited until the last footstep faded, then slipped in the opposite direction, deeper into the broken halls. Every doorway looked like a mouth. Every statue looked like it was watching him. He'd walked these passages before—when the citadel hadn't been shattered, when the sky hadn't been bruised black, when the Watchers still held court like gods above the world.
He'd been a courier then. A messenger. A nobody allowed inside because he was fast, obedient, forgettable.
That version of him had died somewhere between the rift and here.
He paused at a broken window. The city below was chaos. Fires burned in the lower districts. The sky pulsed red over the temples. And all through the streets, he could see the drifting silhouettes—massive, winged, inhuman.
Angels, descending.
Not Fallen.
Pure.
Messengers of the Divine Will.
They weren't supposed to manifest like this. Not simultaneously. Not without warning. Their presence meant something catastrophic had broken protocol.
