Elara's POV
The thunderclap that shakes my cottage isn't normal.
I know this because I've lived through two hundred and forty-seven years of storms, and not one of them has ever made my bones vibrate like someone's playing a drum inside my chest. The candle on my worktable flickers out. My mortar and pestle—filled with feverfew and sage—rattles across the wood and crashes to the floor.
Something celestial just entered the mortal realm.
Something massive.
My heart hammers against my ribs as I press my back against the stone wall. Through the window, lightning splits the sky in jagged purple streaks. Not normal lightning. Celestial lightning. The kind that only appears when Heaven sends hunters to drag fallen angels back to judgment.
Or when something falls from Heaven itself.
"No, no, no," I whisper, sliding down to crouch on the floor. My hands are shaking. "Please just be a storm. Please just be a normal storm."
But I already know better.
Twenty years. I've hidden in this tiny village for twenty years, pretending to be a simple herbalist. Twenty years of keeping my head down, healing small wounds, brewing harmless teas, and never—never—using enough magic to draw attention. The humans here already burn anything they think might be touched by darkness. If they knew what I really was...
Another boom shakes the cottage, but this one isn't thunder.
It's impact.
Something hit the ground. Hard. Maybe a mile into the forest, past the old oak grove where children are forbidden to play because the trees "feel wrong." I feel the shockwave ripple through the earth, through the air, through the invisible threads of magic that connect all living things.
And I feel something else too.
Pain.
Raw, desperate, dying pain.
"Don't you dare," I tell myself, pressing my palms against my eyes. "Don't you dare go out there, Elara. You know what celestial activity means. Hunters. Discovery. Death."
But my healer's instinct is already screaming at me. Something is dying in my forest. Something powerful that hit the ground so hard it probably shattered every bone in its body. Without help, it'll be dead within the hour.
I should let it die.
I should blow out the remaining candles, hide in my cellar behind the strongest concealment ward I can manage, and pray that whatever celestial business is happening out there passes me by.
That's what a smart fallen angel would do.
But I've never been smart when it comes to saving lives.
"You're an idiot," I mutter, grabbing my leather medicine bag from its hook. I stuff it with bandages, healing salves, dried yarrow for blood loss, and a small vial of my own tears—the only thing that can heal supernatural wounds. My hands move on autopilot, the way they always do in emergencies.
I throw on my cloak and pause at the door.
What if it's a trap? What if the Council finally found me and this is how they're drawing me out? Send something hurt, knowing I won't be able to resist helping, and then capture me the moment I reveal myself?
But what if it's not a trap? What if someone is actually dying out there, and I let them bleed out in the mud because I was too scared to try?
I yank open the door.
The storm hits me like a fist. Rain lashes my face, cold and sharp. Wind screams through the trees. I pull my hood up and run toward the forest, my boots splashing through puddles that glow faintly purple in the celestial lightning.
The trail of destruction is easy to follow. Shattered tree trunks. Scorched earth. Deep gouges in the ground where something massive dragged itself forward before finally stopping.
And then I see the crater.
It's at least twenty feet wide, smoking despite the rain. The trees around it are bent backward like they're trying to escape. And in the center, face-down in the mud, is a body.
A male body. With wings.
Huge black wings that are torn and bleeding, feathers scattered everywhere like someone tried to rip them off piece by piece. His armor is cracked, glowing with dying celestial energy. One arm is bent at an angle that makes my stomach turn.
I should run.
Every survival instinct I have is screaming at me to turn around and run.
Because I can see the symbol burned into his breastplate even from here, glowing faint gold through the mud and rain.
The Seraph Mark.
Heaven's executioners.
The ones who hunt fallen angels like me.
The ones who've killed dozens—maybe hundreds—of my kind.
This isn't just any angel who fell. This is one of them. One of the monsters who drag fallen angels back to Heaven in chains. Who execute us without mercy. Who see us as corrupted filth that needs to be eliminated.
I take a step backward.
Then he moves.
Just barely. His fingers twitch in the mud. And then his head turns, just enough for me to see his face. Rain streams down his cheeks, mixing with blood. His eyes crack open—silver-gold eyes that burn with pain so intense it makes my chest physically ache.
Our gazes lock.
And he whispers one word that shatters every wall I've built around my heart.
"Please."
His eyes close. His body goes limp.
The celestial energy around him flickers like a dying candle.
I'm moving before I can think. My knees hit the mud beside him, my hands already glowing with healing light as I press them against the worst of his wounds. Magic flows from my palms into his shattered body, and the moment my power touches his, I feel it.
Wrong. Everything about his celestial essence feels wrong.
This isn't a hunter coming to drag me back to Heaven.
This is a fallen angel just like me.
Heaven's most lethal executioner just became Heaven's most wanted fugitive.
And I just saved his life.
Thunder crashes overhead, and in the distance, I hear something that freezes my blood solid.
Hunting horns.
They're already coming for him.
Which means they're about to find me too.