EZRAEL:
I woke to the scent of coffee and paint thinner, and for one disorienting moment, I thought I was still in Heaven.
Then awareness returned in a flood: the gallery, the shadows, Nara's face when I'd spoken her name. The bond reforming between us like a scar being reopened. The agony of consciousness after centuries of blessed nothingness.
I was lying on something soft—a couch, I realized, in what appeared to be a small office. Morning light filtered through a single window, painting everything in shades of gold that made my eyes ache. My body felt like it had been torn apart and poorly reassembled. Every muscle protested movement. The fragments of my halo burned against my chest, a constant reminder of what I'd lost.
What I'd chosen to lose.
I forced myself to sit up, biting back a groan. The office was cluttered but organized—an artist's space. Canvases leaned against walls. Jars of brushes lined shelves. A desk buried under papers and reference materials. And in the corner, slumped in a chair with her head tilted back in exhausted sleep, was Nara.
She'd stayed. Despite everything—the shadows, my cryptic warnings, the impossibility of what she'd witnessed—she'd stayed with me through the night.
I should have been relieved. Instead, I felt the cold weight of inevitability settling over me like a shroud.
She was beautiful in the morning light. Her locs fell across her face, the golden tips catching the sun like she'd been painted with light. Paint stains marked her hands, her jeans, the oversized shirt that had slipped off one shoulder. Even in sleep, there was something fierce about her. Something that refused to break.
It was the same quality that had drawn me to Adaorah all those centuries ago. The same stubborn courage that had gotten her killed.
The bond hummed between us, growing stronger with every moment I remained near her. I could feel it forming—invisible threads connecting my essence to hers, tethering my existence to her mortal life. It was beautiful and terrible and absolutely forbidden.
I had to leave. Had to put as much distance between us as possible before the bond became unbreakable. Before I drew every enemy I'd ever made straight to her door.
I stood, swaying slightly. My wings—what remained of them—tried to manifest, phantom pain shooting through my shoulders. I forced them back. In the mortal world, among humans, I couldn't afford to be seen for what I truly was. Fallen. Damned. Dangerous.
I made it three steps toward the door before my legs gave out.
Nara jerked awake at the sound of me catching myself against the desk. Her eyes found mine immediately—those amber eyes that I'd seen in a thousand dreams, a thousand lives. Wide with concern now, but no fear. Why wasn't she afraid?
"You shouldn't be moving," she said, her voice rough with sleep. She stood, crossing to me in three quick strides. "You were burning with fever all night. I kept thinking I should take you to a hospital, but—"
"But you knew they couldn't help me," I finished quietly. "You've always been perceptive, Adaorah."
"Nara," she corrected, though something flickered in her eyes at the other name. Recognition? Memory? "And you need to sit back down before you fall."
"I need to leave." I straightened, though it cost me. "Before they come back. Before more of them find us."
"Those shadow things?" She was still too close, her hand hovering near my arm as if she wanted to steady me but wasn't sure she should touch. "What were they? What are you?"
The questions I'd been dreading. The truth I couldn't tell her—not all of it. Not yet. Not when knowing would put an even larger target on her back.
But I owed her something. She'd saved my life, broken the seal that imprisoned me. Even if it was the worst thing that could have happened to both of us.
"May I sit?" I gestured to the couch. "This will take some explanation."
She nodded, watching me carefully as I made my way back to my temporary bed. I sank onto the cushions with less grace than I would have liked. Weakness was unfamiliar. Uncomfortable. In Heaven, before my Fall, I'd been power incarnate—a Watcher, one of the guardians assigned to protect humanity from itself and from threats beyond mortal comprehension.
Now I could barely stand without assistance.
Nara settled into the chair across from me, pulling her legs up under her. Defensive posture, but her gaze was direct. Assessing. She was trying to understand, to fit the impossible pieces into some kind of rational framework.
I recognized that look. I'd seen it on Adaorah's face when I'd first revealed myself to her. Before everything went wrong. Before the gods passed judgment and I fell burning from Heaven while she screamed my name.
"My name is Ezrael Adigwe," I began, using the mortal surname I'd adopted centuries ago. "I am—was—a Watcher. A celestial being assigned to guard humanity. To protect, to guide, to observe without interfering. We were created for that purpose. Angels, if you want the simpler term, though that word carries connotations that aren't quite accurate."
She absorbed this with remarkable calm. "Angels. Like in the Bible."
"Older than your Bible," I said. "Older than most human religions. We existed before your ancestors learned to speak, before they painted their first images on cave walls. We are—" I paused, correcting myself. "We were the boundary between the Divine and the mortal. The rules given form."
"You keep saying 'were,'" Nara observed. "Past tense. What changed?"
Everything. The word burned on my tongue, but I swallowed it. "I broke the most sacred law of Heaven. I fell in love."
Her breath caught. Just slightly. Just enough for me to hear it through the bond.
"There was a woman," I continued, each word a small knife. "Long ago. Before Lagos existed as you know it. Before the Portuguese came, before Islam and Christianity spread through these lands. A priestess at a sacred shrine. Her name was—"
"Adaorah." Nara's voice was barely a whisper. "You keep calling me that."
"Because she was you. Your soul, reborn. Again." I met her eyes, let her see the truth in mine. The recognition. The terrible, endless grief. "You've returned to me dozens of times across the centuries. Different names. Different lives. But always the same soul. Always finding me, despite every barrier Heaven placed between us."
She was shaking her head. "That's not possible. Reincarnation isn't—"
"Possible?" I couldn't help the bitter laugh. "You touched a mural and woke a being who'd been sealed in cursed sleep for over a century. You watched shadows with wings attack us. You saw your own eyes glow gold. And yet reincarnation is where you draw the line at possibility?"
That stopped her. I watched her process, saw the war between rationality and evidence playing out across her face. It was one of the things I'd always loved about her—this life, past lives—the way she approached the impossible with an artist's open mind and a scholar's critical eye.
"Tell me the story," she said finally. "The first time. What happened?"
"Are you certain you want to know?" I leaned forward, ignoring the protest from my exhausted body. "Once you know, Nara, there's no going back to ignorance. No pretending this is all some fever dream or madness. The knowledge will mark you as surely as my presence does."
"I'm already marked." She gestured vaguely at herself. "You said I'm in danger just from being near you. Those things—they'll come back, won't they?"
"Yes." No point in lying. "They sensed my awakening. Heaven's emissaries, Hell's scouts, and worse things besides. All hunting for a fallen Watcher who should have remained imprisoned. And now that they know you freed me, that we're connected..." I couldn't finish. Couldn't voice the terror clawing at my chest.
"Then I need to know what I'm facing." Her jaw set with determination I recognized too well. "Tell me the story, Ezrael. Why did Heaven cast you out?"
So I told her.
Not everything—I kept the prophecy to myself, kept the true nature of what grew within her essence hidden. She wasn't ready for that revelation. Might never be ready. But I told her about the shrine, about young Adaorah who served the old gods with dedication that bordered on devotion. About my assignment to watch over her village when whispers of corruption began spreading through the supernatural realm.
About the first time our eyes met, and how everything I'd been created to be shattered in that moment.
"I fought it," I said, my voice rough. "For months, I maintained my distance. Spoke to her only when duty required. Told myself what I felt was merely admiration for a devoted mortal, nothing more. But the bond..." I touched my chest where the halo fragments burned. "It formed anyway. Across the boundary between divine and mortal. Forbidden. Impossible. Undeniable."
"What happened?" Nara's voice was soft. Gentle. As if she could feel the pain in my words through the growing connection between us.
"Heaven noticed. They always notice. I was given a choice: abandon my post, forget the mortal woman I'd sworn to protect, return to Heaven and never look back. Or be cast down, stripped of my grace, and bound to suffer the consequences of loving what I should have only guarded."
"You refused to leave her."
"I refused to leave you," I corrected. "Adaorah. You. Same soul, different face. I refused to abandon the woman I loved simply because celestial law deemed it inappropriate. So they cast me down. Shattered my wings. Broke my halo. Made me watch—" My voice cracked. "They made me watch as she died in childbirth. As Heaven's punishment took both her and our unborn child. As payment for my defiance."
The office was silent except for the distant hum of Lagos waking up outside. Traffic sounds. Voices. The normal world continuing while I unraveled the fabric of reality for this woman who already bore too much.
"I'm sorry," Nara said finally. "That's... I can't imagine—"
"Don't." The word came out harsher than I intended. "Don't apologize for what Heaven did. Don't pity me for choices I made willingly. I would do it again. Have done it again, in every life where I've found you. And I will keep choosing you until the universe itself ends, damn the consequences."
She stared at me, something complex moving behind those amber eyes. Processing. Analyzing. Feeling things she shouldn't feel for a stranger who'd shattered her understanding of reality.
"You said I'm connected to something dangerous," she said, changing subject with the same stubbornness Adaorah had shown when uncomfortable truths pressed too close. "What did you mean?"
Here. The line I couldn't cross. Not yet.
"You carry a divine bloodline," I said carefully. "Dormant, hidden, suppressed by your mother and her mother before her. But awakened now by touching the mural, by breaking the seal. There's power in you, Nara. Light that Heaven will want to control and Hell will want to corrupt. Power that makes you valuable. Dangerous. A target."
"The woman who came—Adanne. She said something about forgotten contracts."
"Hell's emissaries." I kept my voice neutral despite the rage the memory stirred. "They believe I owe them allegiance. That a fallen angel belongs to them by right. They're wrong, but that won't stop them from trying to collect. And if they can use you as leverage—"
"They'll hurt me to get to you." She finished my thought, then nodded slowly. "So what do we do? How do we stop them?"
We. As if she'd already decided we were in this together. As if she couldn't see the obvious solution staring her in the face.
"I leave," I said firmly. "I put as much distance between us as possible. The bond is still new, still forming. If I go now, it might not complete. You'll be safe—"
"Bullshit."
I blinked, startled by the vehemence in her voice.
"If what you're saying is true—and I still can't believe I'm entertaining this—then they already know about me. That Adanne person already saw us together, saw the connection. Leaving won't protect me. It'll just leave me defenseless."
She was right. Of course she was right. The bond was too far along, her divine essence too awakened. Leaving would only split our strength while our enemies closed in.
But staying meant dooming her. Again. It always ended the same way—with her dying and me powerless to stop it.
"You don't understand—" I started.
"Then make me understand." She leaned forward, and I felt the bond surge between us, responding to her emotion. "Stop being cryptic. Stop trying to protect me by keeping me ignorant. If we're connected, if I'm in danger, then I have a right to know everything."
Everything. Including the child. Including the prophecy. Including the truth that loving me across lifetimes hadn't just been fate—it had been punishment. A cycle designed to break us both.
I couldn't. Not yet. She was already carrying so much—grief for her mother, the revelation of the supernatural world, the awakening of power she didn't understand. Adding the weight of cosmic prophecy and an unborn soul waiting to manifest would shatter her.
"I'll tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it," I said instead. "For now, understand this: you awakened me, which means we're bound. If I leave, they'll still come for you—but you'll face them alone. If I stay, at least I can fight beside you. Protect you."
"And doom me?" She'd heard what I hadn't said. "That's what you think, isn't it? That staying near me will get me killed. Like it did before."
"Every time." The admission tore from me like glass. "Every single life where we've found each other. You die. I survive. The cycle continues. So yes, Nara. History suggests that my presence in your life is a death sentence."
"Then why—" She stopped, understanding dawning. "The bond. It's already too late, isn't it? We're already connected enough that separating won't save me."
"Yes." I couldn't lie to her. Wouldn't. "I'm sorry. If I'd known waking would put you in this position, I would have—"
"Would have what? Stayed imprisoned forever?" She shook her head. "That's not a solution. That's just slow death."
"Better than dragging you into the line of fire."
"Maybe that's not your choice to make."
We stared at each other across the cluttered office, the morning light growing stronger through the window. Outside, Lagos continued its relentless rhythm. Inside, two souls bound across centuries tried to navigate the impossible mathematics of love and survival.
Finally, Nara stood. "I need coffee. Real coffee, not the instant nonsense I keep in the office. And food. And then you're going to tell me everything I need to know to survive whatever's coming." She paused at the door, looking back. "You can argue about leaving all you want, Ezrael. But I'm not running from this. From you. From whatever we are. My mother spent her whole life hiding from this power, this legacy. And it got her killed anyway. I won't make the same mistake."
She left before I could respond, her footsteps echoing down the gallery hallway.
I sat in the wreckage of my body and my resolve, feeling the bond strengthen with every beat of her mortal heart. She was right—staying was the only option now. We were tethered. Connected. Doomed together instead of separately.
I tried to stand again, and this time managed three steps toward the window before my legs betrayed me. I caught myself on the sill, looking out at the Lagos morning. Somewhere in this city, enemies were gathering. Heaven's hunters. Hell's collectors. Things worse than either.
All coming for the woman who'd freed me.
All coming for the soul I'd loved across lifetimes.
All coming for the prophecy neither of us was ready to face.
A knock at the door startled me. Not Nara—the rhythm was wrong, too hesitant. I turned, calling on reserves of strength I didn't have to stand straighter. To appear less vulnerable than I was.
"Come in," I said, already knowing this wouldn't be good news.
The door opened slowly, revealing a young woman in gallery uniform—visitor services, by her badge. Her eyes were too wide, her breathing too fast. Afraid.
"There's someone here to see you," she said in a rush of Pidgin. "Person wey say e dey look for Mister Ezrael. E no look normal." (Someone looking for Mister Ezrael. They don't look normal.)
My blood ran cold. "What do they look like?"
"Tall. Fine face. But the eyes—" She shuddered. "The eyes no be human at all."
Heaven or Hell. It didn't matter which. They'd found us already. Faster than I'd anticipated. Stronger than I'd hoped.
I was in no condition to fight. Nara was undefended. And whoever had come calling wasn't here for polite conversation.
"Tell them I'll be there in a moment," I said, mind racing through options I didn't have. "And find Nara. Miss Obiakor. Tell her to stay away. Tell her—"
"Tell her what?"
Nara's voice came from behind the receptionist, coffee cups in hand and questions in her eyes. She looked past the frightened woman to me, and I saw the exact moment she registered my expression. Saw understanding dawn.
"They're here," she said. Not a question.
"Yes."
"Heaven or Hell?"
"Does it matter?"
She set the coffee down carefully on a nearby desk. Straightened her shoulders. Lifted her chin with that terrible, beautiful courage. "Then I guess we should go meet them. Together."
"Nara—"
"Together," she repeated firmly. "Whatever's coming. We face it together."
And despite everything—despite knowing how this ended, despite the doom I could feel approaching like a storm—I felt something I hadn't experienced in centuries.
Hope.
Foolish. Dangerous. Absolutely forbidden.
But hope nonetheless.
"Together," I agreed. And let her take my arm to steady me as we walked toward whatever waited below.
Toward whatever wanted to tear us apart before we'd even had a chance to begin again.
Toward the next chapter of a story that had been repeating for centuries, waiting for the one ending we'd never been allowed to reach.