Once, his wings were made of light.
Once, the heavens knew his name.
Asrael had stood among the Seraphim, an unshaken warrior of the divine, a guardian of the celestial order. His existence had been simple—carry out the will of the heavens, deliver judgment, never question, never falter.
But then he heard her.
A whisper of a prayer, lost in the sea of mortal voices. He should have ignored it. He was meant to. But something about it caught him, held him there, listening.
She didn't pray for herself.
No cries for wealth, no desperate bargains for love or power.
She prayed for others.
For the lost. The hungry. The ones the world had left behind. There was a kind of quiet sorrow in her words, an aching kindness he couldn't turn away from. And before he even realized what he was doing—he watched her.
It started with a glance. A moment of curiosity.
Then it became more.
A shadow in the distance, a whisper in the wind, a silent guardian who should never have cared. She would never know he was there. Never know that an angel, a being of divine law and judgment, had begun to long for something he could never have.
Then came the night she wept beneath a dying sky.
And Asrael broke the law of heaven.
He reached for her. Just once. Just long enough to wipe a tear from her cheek.
And the moment he touched her, the moment his fingers brushed her skin—
The sky split open.
A crack of thunder. A burning wind.
And the wrath of the divine fell upon him.
He barely had time to turn before they descended—THE SERAPHIM, the warriors of judgment, his own brethren. Their golden blades sang through the air, their eyes filled with the cold fire of righteousness.
They did not hesitate.
They struck.
Pain lanced through him, searing, unbearable. His wings—his beautiful, radiant wings—blackened, curling in on themselves like dying embers. His body burned as the weight of heaven's judgment crashed down on him.
He fought. He had no choice.
Lightning roared, the ground split beneath his feet, and still, he fought. Not for vengeance. Not for survival.
For her.
Because the last thing he saw as the heavens shattered around him was her face.
The last thing he thought before the world turned to darkness was her name.
Then, he fell.