The storm had passed, but its scent lingered. Ozone. Ash. Blood. The silence that followed wasn't peace—just a pause long enough for dread to catch up.
They walked in that silence, the trio threading their way through overgrown ruins and forgotten roads. The sanctuary lay to the east, hidden beyond a veil of time-touched terrain and divine wards. Caleb had never heard of it before that night. Neither had Serenya. But Avesari spoke of it with the reverence of one who remembered its original purpose, as if it were more than refuge. As if it were penance.
The morning sun filtered weakly through the mist, catching on cracked columns and twisted remnants of old technology. Serenya moved with practiced caution, eyes scanning for sigils or traps. Caleb trudged just behind her, carrying what was left of his violin case, wrapped tightly in linen. Avesari brought up the rear, her wings tightly drawn against her back, smoke trailing from the torn feathers.
No one had spoken since they left the Council tower.
Finally, Caleb broke the quiet.
"So... where exactly is this sanctuary?"
Avesari didn't answer at first. Her gaze was distant, fixed on something unseen. When she finally spoke, her voice was softer than usual."Where memory and mercy intersect. The path reveals itself only to those who walk with both."
Serenya shot her a look. "That's not an answer. That's a riddle."
Avesari blinked once, slowly. "It is both. Sanctuary is not found. It is remembered."
Caleb offered a lopsided smile. "So we guess and hope?"
"You play the strings of fate with more than guesswork, Caleb. You've already begun to call it."
That silenced him.
Serenya stopped walking, turning to face the angel directly. Her voice was low, but edged with steel. "Let's not pretend everything is fine now. You brought danger to the tower. To the Council."
"I protected the boy."
"His name is Caleb."
Avesari tilted her head. "And I protected him. Would you rather he had fallen into Serethiel's hands?"
Serenya stepped closer. "And what are your hands, angel? Do you think just because you fought him, I should trust you? I've seen what your kind leave behind. Cities burned. Families shattered."
Caleb put a hand on her arm. "Serenya. She's not like the others."
She turned on him, eyes fierce. "You don't know that."
Avesari looked away, as if the ruins themselves were more deserving of her attention. Her voice, when it came, was low."She's right not to trust me. I've done things I cannot justify."
The admission seemed to pull the tension from the air. Slightly. Serenya blinked, caught off guard.
Caleb frowned. "You saved us. You saved me."
Avesari didn't meet his gaze. "Because I remembered who I was. Because your music stirred something that had long been buried. That does not erase the blood on my hands."
They stood at the edge of a collapsed overpass, rusted girders arching above a chasm below. Serenya said nothing more, but her shoulders relaxed ever so slightly.
They crossed carefully, one by one.
On the other side, the landscape changed. The ruins grew older, their carvings celestial, almost untouched by time. The further they walked, the more Caleb felt... watched. Not by a presence, but by memory itself. The stones seemed to hum faintly beneath their feet.
At one point, Avesari paused beside a broken statue of an angel, one arm outstretched toward the sky.
"I remember this place," she murmured. "Before it burned. Before we turned our blades inward."
Serenya glanced at Caleb. "This is her battlefield, isn't it?"
Caleb nodded, lips pressed thin.
A gust of wind stirred dust across the ancient road. Ahead, a veil of golden mist shimmered between two fractured obelisks.
Avesari straightened. "We're close. But not alone."
Before Serenya could ask, Caleb felt it too. A rumbling beneath the earth. Then a shriek.
Three forms burst from the mist—once-angelic, now malformed and bound in rusted chains of their own making. The Forsaken.
Avesari's wings unfurled despite the pain. "Stay behind me."
Serenya drew a small glyphstone from her satchel. "No promises."
Caleb backed away, clutching his broken violin as if it might still offer some defense.
The Forsaken howled.
Avesari whispered, "Forgive me," and charged.
Light and shadow clashed again.
Serenya stood beside Caleb now, her glyphstone flaring with faint azure runes. She hadn't run. He wasn't surprised.
The battle was brief but brutal—three corrupted shells torn from memory, silenced one by one by the will of a fallen star.
When it was over, ash floated like snow.
Avesari dropped to one knee, wings twitching, the weight of the encounter dragging against her weakened body.
Serenya knelt beside one of the husks, examining the twisted fragments of what once was a sigil.
"They were waiting," she said. "Guarding something."
Caleb turned toward where the Forsaken had emerged. The mist thinned, revealing a weathered stair descending into the ground between the two obelisks. The air hummed with soundless resonance.
Avesari's gaze locked on the opening. Her voice, hoarse and distant, carried a weight that echoed deeper than her words.
"The Sanctum of Echoes," she breathed. "I had forgotten it was buried here..."
Caleb felt it too—a tug in the pit of his chest, like the pull of a memory not his own.
"What's down there?" Serenya asked, wary.
Avesari looked at her, then Caleb. "A relic. Not just any artifact, but one forged before the Fall. A shard of truth... that sings only when the lost begin to remember who they are."
She stood slowly, her shadow long against the broken stones. "It will guide us. To the sanctuary hidden beneath this very battlefield. The last place Heaven looked, and the first place I swore to forget."
The wind shifted. The silence pressed in again. But this time, it carried a promise.
The echo of something waiting to be found.