The morning came like a hesitant breath. The air was fragile, uncertain, as if the new world itself feared to exist after everything that had been broken. The first light spilled across the horizon in muted gold, illuminating the remnants of the battlefield—the ashes of gods, the bones of stars, the fading echo of what had once been divine rage.
Kael stood among it all, the feather still clutched in his hand. It pulsed faintly, as though keeping time with his heart. His body was healed, but his soul was not. The silence pressed on him, heavy and hollow, an ache deeper than any wound.
He looked toward the east, where a new sun struggled to rise through the haze. The wind carried whispers of her—fragments of laughter, warmth, light—but when he turned, there was only emptiness.
He had done what she asked. He had let her go.
And yet, every fiber of his being screamed against it.
