Seraphine's POV
As the sound of Cael's wings disappeared in the tempest, Seraphine allowed the light surrounding her to dim. The chapel reeked of ash and candle wax, the silence pregnant with all she had left unsaid.
She stayed still for quite some time. The cracked altar still bore traces of grace—his and hers, swirled like oil and water.
She thought…he's weakening. Or remembering.
None was the right thing to do. Heaven had always dreaded that he would find her again, that the sound would reach his broken wings and stir that which had been buried. And now it had.
Seraphine spun around, and ran a finger over the glowing sigils etched into the rock. They throbbed, softly, with an essence of divine energy. Sufficient proof to send a call upward.
She hesitated. "
To obey meant watching another world burn for just a single mistake — a mistake that was as unwilling to remain buried as herself. But hesitation was the first step toward disobedience, and she had seen what that cost.
The air behind her moved to life. A shimmer like heat haze solidified into a figure—another angel, armor darker, eyes like mirrored glass.
"You found him," the newcomer said. "
"Yes ."
"And the girl?"
"With him," she replied. "Just as the prophecy foretold."
The other angel unfolded its wings, silver-edged and razor-sharp. "Then it ends before it gets going. The Council has them quietly wiped out. You lead."
Seraphine never took her eyes from the shattered threshold where Cael and the young girl had run. Erased. A fullstop in the beginning, as it now felt sacred.
"Understood," she said.
But when the light took them both back to the sky, she felt the faintest sting—something dangerously like sympathy—for the fallen and the mortal he refused to let go of.
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Bridge Scene — The Council
Above He Would Enter the Hive Assume Breen: The Archon seizes the power, the reward is enough for those who didn't die in battles in space and on the ground duping the enemy alien skulls with their own SAR systems. "Gods doesn't look anything like said stories. structure="aside" height="none" direction="none">0*Open your Libraries}\\It was not clouds&gold, but geometry&light — a world of icy very straight lines, where every thought had weight and every emotion had a residue.
At the top of it was the Hall of Balance, a body of living crystal hanging within the boundless sky. The walls hummed in the language of the choir, the pulsing string of Creation itself emanating a thousand harmonics.
Seraphine bowed down before the dais. As the Council took shape — not as bodies, but as silhouettes woven of radiance, their faces hidden within rings of light too bright to be named.
"Report," said the voices in unison.
Her wings lowered. "The tiedup has awakened. The fallen, Cael, is with her."
A ripple of light crossed the hall. "And the host of remembrance?"
"Dormant, But Stirring. The resonance between them grows stronger. If left unchallenged, it could unmake the veil."
For a long moment, the hall was silent — the kind of silence that feels like judgment.
"Then the prophecy holds," the central voice said."The Echo returns to the fallen, and the fallen reaches once again for grace. It is a cycle repair cycle. "
Another voice, softer, is older: "He was warned. He was forgiven once. No more."
"Then the order stands?"
The Council's light flared brighter. "Erase them both. Quietly. Before they feel this crack in the mortal realm."
Seraphine's hands clenched so hard. "What about if the Echo rebels?"
"It will. They always do."
"Then it must be taught to forget what it is not meant to know."
The chamber dimmed. A single feather fell from the light at Seraphine's feet — blackened at the edges, a sign of sanction.
"Restore the balance to Heaven."
She bowed her head, hiding the tremor racking her.
As she stands up, the light of the Council was already dying, leaving her alone with the feather and the soft hum of judgment.