When the mist cleared, she found him — the boy with golden eyes, sitting on the wet stones.
The wooden cross in his hands was cracked, but his gaze never wavered.
"You destroyed them," he said softly. "But they were only lost."
Seraphim knelt before him, the glow of her sigil dimming.
"They were bound by the curse. If left, they would have devoured your town."
The boy tilted his head.
"Still… you didn't pray for them."
The words struck her deeper than any blade.
For in the silence that followed, she realized — he was right.
"I forgot how," she confessed, voice breaking.
The boy reached out, placing his small hand over the sigil.
Warm light spread beneath his touch — not divine, but human.
A light that forgave without reason.
"You once taught me how to pray," he whispered.
And in that instant, her heart froze.
Because she remembered —
that voice, that child —
from centuries ago, before her fall, before her wings turned to ash.
"…Elior?" she breathed.
The boy smiled through his tears.
"Welcome back, my angel."
Her pulse trembled, a rhythm out of time.
The world around them—an old chapel buried under ivy and moonlight—seemed to hold its breath.
Memories broke through like shards of glass: laughter under golden skies, a hand reaching for hers, the scent of myrrh and rain.
She had watched him die once. Watched his soul fade while hers burned.
And now—
here he was.
Elior, reborn.
No longer a child, but a man cloaked in the fragile warmth of mortality.
Yet his eyes still held the same light—the one she once guarded at the dawn of creation.
"You shouldn't remember me," she whispered, stepping closer.
"I prayed the curse would spare you."
He shook his head. "I tried to forget. But every time the wind sang, every time I dreamed of the sea... I heard your voice."
A silence fell between them, thick with centuries of grief and yearning.
She reached out, trembling.
Her fingers brushed his cheek—warm, alive.
And for the first time in a thousand years,
the ashes of her wings shimmered faintly,
like the memory of dawn returning to a long-forgotten sky.