Cain left the warehouse before dawn cracked the broken horizon. He didn't wait for Sirin; she fell into step behind him without protest. Neither of them spoke for a long stretch of ruined road. Not out of tension—out of calculation. Everything had shifted. Every word mattered now.
He walked with purpose, boots crunching over glass and debris. The cold wind cut through the industrial skeletons lining the street, carrying the faint metallic tang of old fires. Cain didn't bother pulling up his collar. His mind was too occupied with the emissary's warning.
Azhariel.
He'd heard the name in whispers. Old cult scribblings. Forbidden archives. The first Watcher. The one who guided humanity before the Fall twisted guidance into dominion. Legends painted him as a god of knowledge and ruin; some claimed he taught early civilizations how to manipulate "the threads," the unseen backbone of creation.
Cain never believed the stories.
Now he didn't have the luxury of disbelief.
