The cathedral chamber still smelled faintly of burnt feathers and cracked divinity.
It was a smell that never should have existed—a contradiction made physical. Holy residue laced with the metallic sharpness of something wounded, something ancient.
The air clung to the skin like warm breath from a dead god, too heavy to be ignored, too real to be dismissed as imagination.
Moonlight crawled through the shattered pillars like hesitant fingers, pale beams brushing against crumbled stone and glittering shards of stained glass.
Dust drifted in slow spirals, each particle a tiny ghost of the battle above, a drifting reminder that the sky itself had split open tonight… and found its godhood wanting.
Aiden stood at the center of the grand hall, perfectly still, wearing serenity like a halo.
Wearing holiness like a skin he could shrug on—or peel off—whenever he wished.
