The wind screamed in colorless tongues above the mountains of Vareth. Light bled through the clouds in fractured beams, not sunlight—something older. Something unpermitted. It cut the sky open like a wound.
Seraphiel hovered just above the cliff’s edge, her bare feet never quite touching stone. The air bent around her, suffocating in its reverence. Her wings—once woven of harmony and starlight—were now fire-laced, torn at the edges, their feathers glowing with volatile grace.
She had not come to weep.
Beneath her, the valley twisted with signs of war. Whole battalions lay turned to ash, not from sword or spell, but from divine grief—weaponized, blinding. Her descent had ended a siege in moments. She had not spared, nor explained. They had raised banners against her daughter.
So she rai
