"I never sleep."
Everlyn did not believe me.
She tried to keep watch through the night, seated across the chamber in full armor, eyes fixed on me as if waiting for the lie to reveal itself.
Sometime before dawn, exhaustion claimed her. When she woke, startled and ashamed, I was exactly where she had left me.
Unblinking.
I sat by the palace window, watching the city of Oma breathe beneath the dark. Fires dimmed one by one.
Torches were exchanged as guards changed their watch. Streets emptied, then filled again in quiet cycles.
Somewhere far below, an infant cried—thin and desperate—until a mother's voice wrapped around the sound and pulled it back into calm.
Everlyn had offered me a chamber.
Food.
Rest.
I refused all but the view.
Night on Earth felt heavier than day. Not louder in sound, but in weight. Every life pressed into the air—brief, fragile, burning too fast.
In Haven, time drifted like light through water. Here, it felt slow. Each second mattered. Each breath counted.
By morning, the city knew my name.
I heard it before I saw them.
Whispers first, carried through stone halls. Then footsteps—many, hurried, uncertain. Then voices, rising together into excited disbelief.
Everlyn stood beside me, armored even at dawn. Her shoulders were tense, drawn tight by questions she did not yet dare ask.
Then the doors burst open.
A child ran in.
Too fast for Everlyn to stop. Too small to be a threat.
He collided with me, thin arms locking around my waist, face pressed into my side as though he had known me all his life.
The room froze.
I felt him before I fully understood him.
Fear—hot and wild, unguarded. Hope—bright and reckless.
He smelled of dust, fresh bread, and the warmth of the morning sun clinging to his clothes.
I knelt immediately and held him.
He stiffened in surprise—then laughed. A loud, bubbling sound that echoed off the palace walls. I felt the vibration of it through my chest, an unfamiliar yet wonderful sensation.
"Well," I said, smiling despite myself, "this is either a greeting… or an arrest."
He laughed harder.
Everlyn stared.
The child leaned back just enough to study my face. His eyes widened.
"You're warm," he said, as if this alone mattered.
"I should hope so," I replied. "If I were cold, that would be worrying."
He giggled again.
I rested my hands on his shoulders. "You should go home now," I told him gently. "And you should always listen to your mother."
He frowned.
"Even when she's wrong?"
"Especially then," I said solemnly.
He nodded as if I had been entrusted with a great truth, then ran off as suddenly as he had arrived.
The silence he left behind was heavier than before.
Everlyn looked at me differently after that.
Not as a weapon. Not as a threat. Not even as a miracle.
But as a man.
"I will introduce you to the people," she said.
I waited.
"There is one condition," she continued.
"You heal anyone who comes to you. Anyone in need."
"I can't bring back the dead," I said at once.
Her jaw tightened. "I know."
"But I will help the living," I replied. "As many as come."
I reached for one of the crystal shards Everlyn had removed from my wounds. The moment it touched my palm, pain flared—sharp and true.
Everlyn looked nervous as I picked up the very thing that left me unconscious.
"I need it," I said."It was forged to hurt me. I will explain when we return."
That was enough to calm her nerves.
She led me out.
The people lined the streets before noon.
Old wounds. Fresh ones. Illnesses that had lingered too long.
Bones healed wrong. Children born gasping for air. Mothers who could not stand without pain.
I knew my blood carried healing. I had never used it in this way.
To heal them, I had to cut my palms.
The shard burned—not because of the wound, but because of what it was. In Haven, we called it Crystal Ash.
I pressed my bleeding hands to them. Smeared warm, glowing drops across their foreheads.
And with each touch, their pain rushed into me like a tide.
Some screamed as their bodies corrected themselves. Some wept. Some collapsed to their knees.
The sign was always the same: a faint glow in their own blood before it faded, leaving them whole.
I bled all day.
By sunset, they had a name for me.
The Blood of Haven.
I did not choose it.
They did.
By evening, the air changed.
I felt it before sound reached us—an ancient pressure, familiar and terrible, like the world holding its breath.
The sky darkened unnaturally.
And then he was there.
Abel.
Son of Adam. Immortal. Vessel of Uriel, the Eternal Light.
He did not arrive with thunder or fire. He simply was—standing among the people as though he had always belonged.
"Arinthal," he said calmly, "you must return with me to Haven."
The crowd recoiled.
I stepped forward and told them the truth. Who he was.
I revealed how Haven was the paradise mankind descended from.
But...
I did not tell them why I left.
"I'll go," I said.
I would not let anyone be harmed for my sake.
That was when I felt it.
Small hands gripping my leg.
The child from the morning.
He clung to me, crying now, face buried against me. "Don't go," he begged. "Please don't go."
Then another hand.
Then another.
Mothers. Fathers. The healed. The hopeful.
Everlyn called for her soldiers without hesitation.
Abel looked at them all—stunned.
Then he laughed softly.
"You spend one day on Earth," he said to me, "and you've already won their loyalty."
He stepped back.
"I am no thief of hearts," he said. "Farewell, Light Blood."
And he was gone.
I stood there, surrounded.
And for the first time since leaving Haven—
I understood why I could never return.
I came for these people.
I came for the world.
I came for Zefar.