The chapel still smelled of scorched wood and salt, the scent of rebellion and vows made without permission. Irene's veil had been stitched with starlight, her wings folded in reverence, not submission. Daemon had worn no crown, only a blade at his hip and a promise in his eyes. The ceremony had been brief, defiant, and witnessed only by the river and the lilies that bowed in the breeze.
For a time, they lived in a hush of stolen peace. The world, stunned by their audacity, held its breath. Irene's laughter softened the stone halls of Daemon's citadel. Daemon's hands, once calloused by war, learned the gentler weight of cradling her waist, her cheek, her silence. They built a home at the edge of two worlds, where treaties frayed and love dared to bloom.
But even in that fragile bliss, the cracks began.
The twins arrived like omens wrapped in silk. Allisiario first, born under a blood moon, his cry sharp enough to silence the wind. Ellinaskariya followed, her birth marked by a sudden hush, as if the universe paused to witness her arrival. Irene wept when she held them—tears of awe, of fear, of a love too large to name.
Daemon stood at the edge of the nursery, watching his children with a reverence that bordered on terror. He had never known softness could be so loud. He kissed their foreheads with trembling lips, whispering ancient lullabies in a tongue that once summoned armies.
But the world did not forget. Letters arrived sealed in wax and venom. The Angelic Council demanded explanations. The Demon Courts sent veiled threats disguised as congratulations. Irene burned the letters. Daemon sharpened his blades.
And the twins grew.
The house that once echoed with lullabies now rang with arguments.
"You lied to me," Irene hissed one night, her voice a blade honed by betrayal. "You said you loved me. You said you chose me."
Daemon stood at the hearth, his silhouette fractured by firelight. "I did. I do."
"Then why," she spat, "did your mother's dagger bear my name?"
Silence. The kind that bruises.
"I was meant to use you," he admitted, voice low, ashamed. "But I didn't. I couldn't. I fell in love with you, Irene. That was never the plan."
She laughed, bitter and broken. "And what am I now? A failed mission? A discarded strategy?"
Their fights became storms. The twins, still toddlers, learned to recognize the pitch of fury in their parents' voices. Ellina would cover her ears and cry. Allis would stare, unblinking, memorizing every word.
"You think I don't see the way you look at them?" Daemon shouted once, slamming a goblet against the wall. "Like they're yours alone. Like I'm just the shadow that followed you home."
"They are mine," Irene snapped. "I carried them. I bled for them. And I will not let your legacy poison them."
Daemon's eyes flared. "And I will not let your righteousness cage them."
"And I will never let you hurt them... Never in a million generations!" Irene finished the argument.
The house cracked under the weight of their truths...
It wasn't called a divorce.
Not in their world.
It was a severance of celestial and infernal bonds, a ritual older than stars and more painful than war.
The ceremony took place in the Temple of Unmaking, where angels once fell and demons once rose. Irene wore white again, but this time it was armor. Daemon wore black, not out of tradition, but because grief had no other color.
The twins were not present. Too young, too sacred.
"I release you," Irene said, voice steady, though her hands trembled.
"I never wanted this," Daemon replied, his voice a wound.
The officiant—a neutral entity with no allegiance but to law—cut the air between them with a blade of light and shadow. The bond unraveled. The air wept.
Custody was not discussed. It was warred over.
"I will not let them live in your citadel of blood," Irene screamed in the council chambers.
"And I will not let them rot in your sanctimonious cage," Daemon roared back.
The councils intervened. A treaty was drafted. The twins would split their time— Daemon and Allis in the Underrealm, a paradise for demons, Ellina and Irene in the Celestial Skies, a paradise for angels. But the treaty wasn't of separation. Daemon and Irene will still live together, and so will the twins, in the middle of both realms. Neither parent was satisfied. They never were.
The house was quieter now. Too quiet.
Irene walked the halls like a ghost, her wings dulled, her smile a memory. She taught Ellina to read prophecies and to wield feathers like daggers. She told her daughter repeatedly so she won't forget, "You are light, but never let them blind you."
Daemon trained Allis in the art of restraint. "Power," he said, "is not in the strike. It's in the choice not to."
The twins grew apart and together. They learned to navigate the silence between visits, the tension in their parents' eyes, the way love could curdle into resentment.
Neighbors whispered. "The goddess of everything and the demon king—what did they expect?" "It was doomed from the start." "Poor children."
The twins heard it all.
One night, Ellina asked, "Do you think they ever loved each other?"
Allis didn't answer. He didn't know how.
But in the attic, hidden beneath old treaties and broken toys, lay a box of letters—unsent, unread. Irene's handwriting, Daemon's seal. Love, in fragments. Love, in past tense.
And somewhere in the valley, the lilies still leaned toward the river, remembering a time when love was enough to defy the stars.
But not enough to survive them.