"Even fallen angels remember how to burn."
The light swallowed everything.
Sound, breath, thought all vanished beneath its weight.
For a moment, I thought I was dead.
Then I felt the cold concrete under my palms and the sting of rain on my face. My lungs fought for air as I opened my eyes, the world still burning white at the edges.
"Elias!" I shouted.
No answer. Only the rain and the echo of thunder overhead.
When the light finally dimmed, I saw him standing in the middle of the street, his back to me, facing the figures emerging from the smoke.
There were four of them now. The Wardens. Their forms flickered like broken reflections too bright to be human, too sharp to be divine.
Elias's coat whipped in the wind, his stance low and ready. The faint glow beneath his skin blazed brighter, tracing ancient runes along his arms.
"Back to your pit," one of the Wardens hissed, voice overlapping like a chorus. "You were not meant to walk among mortals."
Elias laughed softly, bitterly. "Neither were you."
He spread his arms, and for the first time, I saw them wings. Not the soft, holy kind I'd imagined from stories, but wings of molten light and shadow, feathered with ash and flame.
The rain hissed as it hit them.
The Wardens attacked first. Spears of pure energy shot toward him, tearing through the air like lightning. Elias twisted, one wing sweeping forward to deflect the blast. Sparks flew. The street cracked under the force.
He moved like a storm too fast, too wild. Every strike was beautiful and violent all at once.
But he was outnumbered.
One of the Wardens appeared behind him, blade raised. I screamed, "Elias, behind you!"
He turned too late. The blade struck his shoulder, cutting deep light spilling from the wound instead of blood. He staggered but didn't fall. Instead, he caught the Warden's arm, twisting it until the creature screamed and disintegrated into dust.
My heart pounded. Fear and something sharper surged through me. My hands trembled again and then began to glow.
No. Not now.
I tried to fight it, but the light inside me pulsed harder, stronger. The pendant around my neck shattered with a small, sharp sound.
Elias turned toward me, eyes wide. "Aiden! Stop"
But it was too late.
The world tilted. The rain froze mid-air, droplets suspended like glass beads around me. The colors drained away until everything turned gold.
And I wasn't in the street anymore.
I stood on a battlefield ancient, burning, filled with screams that echoed across eternity. The smell of smoke and blood filled the air. And there, standing before me, was Elias not as he was now, but in armor, his wings darker, his face younger, fierce and unbroken.
"Ariselle," he said not as a question, but a memory.
My chest tightened. "Elias?"
He reached out a hand, his gauntlet stained with ash. "You promised me. You said you'd never return to this curse."
"I didn't" My voice broke. "I didn't mean to."
"You never do." His hand dropped. "And every time you come back, you burn us both."
The vision trembled, fragments breaking apart like shattered glass. The battlefield melted back into the rain-soaked street. I gasped, stumbling forward.
Elias caught me before I fell. His hands were shaking. "You're remembering too fast."
"I saw us," I said breathlessly. "The war. You were"
He pressed a finger to my lips. "Don't say it here. They can hear names."
The Wardens regrouped, forming a circle of light around us. The air buzzed with power. One of them raised their staff.
"The vessel is waking. Contain the flame."
Elias pulled me close, shielding me with his body. "They'll destroy you to stop the awakening."
I gripped his coat, desperate. "Then don't let them."
He smiled faintly, eyes full of something dangerously close to tenderness. "You always did know how to ask for the impossible."
Then he stepped away from me. His wings flared wide their tips glowing with the same golden hue that burned in my veins.
"Get back," he said.
The last thing I saw before the light swallowed him again was the faint trace of a smile half sorrow, half defiance.
The world cracked open.
The light burst outward like a sun breaking free from its own cage, and for a heartbeat, I could see everything every raindrop, every trembling shadow, every pulse of life around us frozen in impossible clarity.
Elias stood at the center of it all, his wings spread wide, burning brighter than the city lights. The Wardens surrounded him, chanting in a language that tasted like iron and smoke. Their halos pulsed in rhythm, each word a blade carving through the air.
I could feel it the spell they were weaving wasn't meant to kill. It was meant to seal.
They were trying to drag him back.
Elias roared, a sound more pain than rage. His wings fractured, light leaking out in tendrils. For the first time, he looked fragile. Mortal.
"Elias!" I shouted, taking a step forward.
He turned, voice hoarse. "Stay back!"
But I couldn't. Something in me maybe Ariselle's memory, maybe my own heart refused to let him fight alone.
I reached out my hand.
And the world exploded again.
Golden fire burst from my chest, burning through the rain. The Wardens recoiled, their chants shattering mid-word. The sigils beneath them flickered and died.
Elias stared at me, eyes wide. "You you shouldn't have been able to do that."
"I don't know what I did," I gasped.
He laughed, breathless. "That's what makes it terrifying."
The nearest Warden lunged at me, their blade glowing white-hot. Instinct took over I raised my arm, and a wall of flame erupted from the ground, cutting the Warden off. The fire didn't burn me. It felt like breathing.
When the flames cleared, Elias stood beside me again, his expression unreadable.
"You remember her," he said quietly.
"Pieces," I admitted. "Dreams, feelings. The war. You."
Something in his eyes softened for just a moment before he looked away. "Then the curse has already begun."
"What curse?"
Before he could answer, the ground trembled. The remaining Wardens raised their staffs, merging their power into a single sphere of white light. It expanded, humming, devouring the air around it.
"They're collapsing the barrier," Elias hissed. "They'll take the city with them if they can't seal you."
He grabbed my wrist. "We run."
We sprinted through the rain-soaked street as the light consumed everything behind us. Windows shattered, alarms wailed, the world itself seemed to scream.
"Where are we going?" I yelled.
"Somewhere they can't follow," he said. "Somewhere old."
He led me through narrow alleys, across rooftops slick with rain, until we reached the edge of the old industrial district an abandoned church standing silent beneath the storm.
The door creaked open on its own. Inside, candles burned though no one had lit them.
Elias shut the door behind us and leaned against it, breathing hard. His wounds glowed faintly, closing on their own.
"You shouldn't have come after me," he said.
"You shouldn't have fought alone," I shot back.
He gave a quiet laugh tired, almost fond. "Still stubborn."
I hesitated. "Elias what did they mean? The vessel? The curse?"
He looked at me for a long moment, then stepped closer. The candlelight caught his eyes, turning them molten gold.
"You were never meant to return to this world," he said softly. "Neither of us were. Every time you awaken, the balance breaks and the world starts to die."
I swallowed hard. "And you still protected me."
He reached up, brushing his thumb against my cheek. "Because I would rather watch the world burn than lose you again."
The words hit like a blade and a promise all at once.
The candles flickered. The air thickened.
And then from the shadows behind the altar a voice spoke, low and cold:
"You've already lost her once, Thorn. This time, we make sure she stays buried."
The last Warden stepped forward, holding a blackened shard pulsing with light something ancient, something that pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat.
My vision blurred. The world tilted.
And then I realized it wasn't my heart that was pulsing.
It was Ariselle's.