The battle was over, but the sky still bled light.
Feathers fell like snow — golden, burning, weightless.
The music of the Choir faded into a low hum, like the dying breath of a world that had sung too long.
Arhaan stood over the fallen Seraph Althriel.
The once-radiant angel now lay shattered across the plains, his six wings broken, their light dimming to a soft, mournful glow.
The Covenant troops watched from afar in silence. Even Kael didn't move. No one did.
There was something sacred about the stillness — something final.
Althriel's voice came faintly, a whisper carried by the wind.
"So this is… freedom?"
Arhaan knelt beside him, his eyes still glowing faintly white. "Freedom hurts," he said softly. "It always does at first."
Althriel smiled weakly. "I sang every note Heaven gave me. I believed every word. But the song never… belonged to us."
Arhaan's hand hovered over the Seraph's chest, where the light flickered like a dying star.
"What do you mean?"
Althriel's gaze unfocused, as though looking beyond the world.
> "The Arbiter… he was not Heaven's first voice. He stole the Flame. He silenced the true Choir — the ones who birthed the light."
Arhaan's breath caught. "What are you saying?"
> "There was a first song, Oathbreaker. One that could create without destroying. One that could… choose."
The Seraph's eyes turned to him.
> "You hear it now, don't you? In your heart?"
Arhaan froze.
The whisper he had felt since the battle began — the pulse in his veins, the rhythm in his soul — it wasn't the First Flame's rage.
It was music.
Soft. Infinite. Beautiful.
> "It calls to you," Althriel said, his voice fading. "Because you are not its destroyer… you are its echo."
---
A moment of silence. Then Althriel's light rose from his body — a stream of golden essence drifting upward into the broken heavens.
For the first time, the light didn't return to Heaven.
It flowed toward Arhaan, merging gently into his chest.
Kael rushed forward. "Arhaan—"
Arhaan raised a hand. "It's alright. He gave it freely."
The runes on the Oathbreaker shifted, one symbol changing to a soft gold instead of crimson.
Selara gasped. "It's rewriting itself."
Arhaan looked up, eyes full of wonder and sorrow.
"Heaven's first truth wasn't control. It was harmony."
---
Far above, the High Arbiter stood before the Divine Annihilator, trembling with fury.
"He learns too much," he snarled. "He remembers what we buried!"
The Annihilator's single eye opened again, reflecting Arhaan's face in its white fire.
> "The Flame… sings once more."
The Arbiter clenched his fist.
"Then I will silence it forever."
---
Back on the plains, as the Covenant gathered their wounded, Kael approached Arhaan quietly.
"You look different," he said.
Arhaan smiled faintly, light spilling from the cracks in his hands.
"I'm remembering what I was meant to be."
Kael frowned. "And what's that?"
Arhaan looked toward the horizon, where dawn's first light began to rise — not Heaven's light, but the world's.
"The bridge," he said. "Between what was created… and what will be free."