The rain had stopped, but the scent of it lingered — wet earth and night-blooming lilies drifting through the courtyard. Torches hissed and cracked in the breeze, their flames bending toward the open garden where Queen Lyra stood alone.
Her cloak clung to her shoulders, damp with mist. The marble beneath her feet shimmered, reflecting the faint light of the moon. All around her, Elaris seemed to sleep — the guards quiet at their posts, the fountains still. But Lyra couldn't rest. The stars above had begun to vanish one by one, and every time she closed her eyes, she heard the echoes of the court seer's warning:
> "An angel walks among men. And wherever angels tread, kingdoms fall."
Lyra pressed her palm against her chest, feeling the faint thrum of her heartbeat.
"An angel…" she whispered, her voice trembling like a secret afraid of being heard. "Then why does my heart not fear?"
Behind her, footsteps stirred — steady, calm, unhurried. She turned sharply.
Aris — that was the name he had given when she asked. A wanderer, a healer, a man with eyes that never seemed fully mortal. They gleamed too deeply, like they carried the memory of stars. He bowed his head as he approached, a gesture both respectful and hauntingly deliberate.
"You shouldn't be out here, Your Majesty," he said softly. "The night still carries the sickness in its breath."
Lyra gave a faint smile, one that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"And yet you're here."
He paused. "Perhaps for the same reason you are."
Silence stretched between them — not awkward, but heavy, like a thread drawn taut. Lyra's gaze drifted toward the heavens, tracing the black gaps where stars used to shine.
"Another one disappeared tonight," she murmured. "I watched it fade while the priests burned incense and begged the gods for mercy. And do you know what I felt, Aris?"
He tilted his head, cautious. "Tell me."
"Not fear. Not anger. Only… recognition. As if I had seen that darkness before, somewhere deep inside myself." She turned to him, her eyes clear and fierce. "What do you see when you look at the stars, Aris? Do they still comfort you?"
He hesitated. The truth pressed against his ribs like a blade — that he had once been among them, that the light dying in the sky was his own rebellion echoing outward. But the mortal woman before him was not ready for that truth, and perhaps neither was he.
"I see… reminders," he said finally. "Of what can be lost, and what can still be saved."
Lyra studied him for a long moment, as though weighing the honesty in his voice. "You speak like a man who's seen too much loss."
He met her gaze then — and for a heartbeat, the world narrowed to the color of her eyes. Warm. Unwavering. Human.
"I have," he said. "More than I wish to remember."
---
They walked together along the marble path, their footsteps echoing softly through the colonnade. The moonlight painted their shadows long and close — two figures bound by something unseen.
Lyra's voice broke the quiet first. "Do you believe the heavens curse us, Aris? The priests say the plague is divine punishment. That my mercy to the sick offends the gods."
He smiled faintly, but the expression didn't last. "If mercy offends them, then their divinity is hollow."
She blinked — surprised by the boldness in his tone. "Careful. Words like that could cost a man his life."
"Then let them," he replied simply. "A life spent in silence is no life worth keeping."
There it was again — that quiet fire in him, that unearthly certainty that made her pulse quicken. He spoke not like a man afraid of death, but one who had touched it and returned.
"Who are you, truly?" she asked, stopping before a marble pillar wrapped in ivy. "You move like a soldier but speak like a scholar. You heal like a priest but believe in none of their gods. You call yourself a wanderer, but your eyes…" She stepped closer, her voice softening. "Your eyes see too much."
Aris's heart — if it could still be called that — stuttered.
Every word she spoke seemed to peel back another layer of the lie he wore. He could feel the divine pulse buried beneath his skin, begging to reveal itself. But to do so would mean the end of her peace, and likely his.
He swallowed the truth and gave her something gentler instead.
"Maybe I am just a man who's searching for something worth believing in again."
Lyra's lips parted — to question, to comfort, he couldn't tell.
But the sound of distant bells broke the moment. The temple's warning — three chimes, slow and deliberate. Somewhere in the city, another soul had fallen to the plague.
Lyra turned sharply, anguish flashing across her face. "That's the third tonight…"
Without hesitation, she gathered her cloak and began to run. Aris followed. They moved through the palace corridors like twin shadows, emerging into the courtyard where servants had gathered in grief around a covered body.
A child.
Lyra knelt beside the small form, her hands trembling as she lifted the shroud. The boy's face was pale, lips tinged with blue. His mother wept quietly beside her, whispering prayers through her tears.
Lyra closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and pressed her hand to the child's chest. "Bring me warm water," she said. "And cloth."
"Your Majesty—" a guard began, but she silenced him with a look.
"She's done this before," Aris murmured, stepping forward. "Let her."
The servants scattered. Lyra bent over the boy, her brow furrowed in concentration. "He was breathing not an hour ago," she whispered. "I felt his pulse. Why does death come so quickly?"
Because death never waits, Aris thought. Because I am death.
But instead of saying it, he knelt beside her, drawn by the raw compassion in her trembling hands.
"Sometimes," he said quietly, "death only comes when it is called."
She turned to him, desperate. "Then help me call life instead."
Something inside him broke.
He had sworn never again to use the power that slumbered beneath his mortal shell. But her voice — soft, pleading, radiant with faith — was stronger than any oath.
He reached for the boy's forehead, his fingers hovering inches above the skin. The air thickened, humming faintly with unseen energy.
Lyra gasped as the candle flames around them flickered, drawn inward toward his hand.
A faint glow pulsed beneath his palm — gold, warm, alive.
The boy's chest rose once. Then again.
And then he coughed, crying out, the color rushing back into his cheeks.
The courtyard froze in stunned silence.
The mother fell to her knees, sobbing. "A miracle! Praise be to the Queen! Praise be—"
But Lyra wasn't looking at the child. Her gaze was locked on Aris. On the faint light fading from his skin, on the way his breath came shallow as though the act had cost him something vast.
"What did you do?" she whispered. "That wasn't… human."
Aris's hand dropped to his side. "Sometimes," he said softly, "faith answers in ways we can't understand."
Lyra rose slowly, stepping toward him. The world seemed to hold its breath. "You're not what you seem," she said. "Are you?"
He met her eyes — no mask left, no pretense — and for a heartbeat she saw it: the vastness, the sorrow, the eternity reflected there.
An angel's grief wearing a man's face.
Her lips parted, but he turned away first, his voice barely a whisper.
"Not tonight. Not here."
---
Later, when the palace slept, Lyra stood by her window, watching the clouds drift like slow silver ghosts. The wind tugged gently at her hair. Below, the torches burned low, their flames tired from too much mourning.
She should have felt safe. Instead, her heart felt like a storm.
Whoever Aris truly was, he carried both danger and comfort in equal measure — a contradiction she couldn't ignore. The way he had looked at her, the way the air had pulsed around him, it all felt like standing at the edge of a truth too vast to survive.
And yet, when she closed her eyes, she felt no fear.
Only warmth.
Only the echo of his voice saying, Sometimes, faith answers…
---
Far beyond the mortal sky, in the realm of endless light, the Seraphic Choir stirred. The first trumpet had sounded — a warning through the heavens.
Azrael had broken the Law once more.
Feathers fell from unseen wings, burning as they drifted through the void.
And from the throne of radiance, a voice like thunder whispered:
> "The Angel of Endings has chosen defiance.
Send the Watchers.
Heaven shall not forgive."
---
That night, while Lyra dreamed of a nameless savior bathed in light, Azrael knelt alone in the temple ruins outside the city. His mortal hands shook as he stared at his reflection in the rainwater pooling at his feet.
Half of one feather — white at the tip, black at the root — had emerged from his back, tearing through skin that could no longer hide the truth.
He touched it, wincing at the pain.
"I've fallen too far to rise again," he murmured.
And somewhere in the distance, the stars continued to vanish — one by one.