✦ The World of Arael’s Exile: Ilithara ✦
It is not Hell. No fire, no brimstone, no demons clawing at the flesh. It is something far worse. A planet carved out of divine matter, suspended in a false sky, orbiting nothing but the Warden-Star. The sky never changes. The clouds are soft sculptures, frozen in place, and the air always smells faintly of incense—sickly sweet and inescapable. There are trees, yes, and stone ruins where there should be cities. A palace, even, with columns that reach endlessly into the sky. But no birds. No animals. No other voices.
Water flows, but it sings no song. Wind brushes the grass, but it brings no chill. Time does not pass—not truly.
Arael sleeps when he remembers to. He dreams in fragments of light and gold. He wakes to silence and begins again.
✦ The Present: Ilior Visits ✦
Arael sat on the steps of his hollow palace, long legs stretched before him, bare feet dusted in powdered stardust. His wings draped around his shoulders like a shawl, trembling from a recent storm of emotion—perhaps real, perhaps not. He didn’t cry anymore. There were no more tears left in him, only the feeling of weeping.
And then… the hum. Like the pull of gravity where there is none. He rose his head slowly.
A fracture in the sky peeled open like a wound of light, and through it stepped the one creature who still dared to visit him.
Ilior.
He did not glow as he used to. He burned now—his skin too luminous, his crown too sharp. His feet did not touch the ground, but the grass beneath him bowed, knowing its god.
"Arael," he said, his voice the sound of bells in mourning. "You look tired."
Arael did not stand. His voice cracked like dry parchment.
"Why are you here?"
Ilior stepped closer, slow as always. He never rushed—gods have no need. His hand lifted and hovered above Arael’s head, fingers twitching in temptation to touch.
"Because I miss you."
The words, so simple, nearly shattered the silence. Arael flinched as though struck.
"You miss me?" A bitter smile twitched on his mouth. "You mean you miss watching me suffer. Watching what you've done."
Ilior’s gaze did not change. He had no shame, no fury, only that divine calm.
"I saved you. I gave you eternity. The Council would’ve torn your soul apart. You’d be nothing now. But here… here you are still beautiful. Still mine."
Arael stood now, slowly, wings dragging behind him like broken oaths.
"You love the sound of my suffering. Admit it."
"I love the sound of your voice," Ilior corrected. "Even when it curses me."
Arael took a step forward. He was thinner now, hollower, but his presence still had that haunting grace that had ruined gods.
"If you loved me, you would’ve let me fall."
"If I let you fall," Ilior murmured, "you would’ve forgotten me."
And there it was.
The truth, bare and aching.
Arael’s lips parted, a sharp breath taken in. The Warden-Star above pulsed like a heartbeat. He could feel its gaze.
"You're a god. You could unmake this world."
"Yes."
"Then why don't you?"
Ilior's voice dipped, reverent. "Because I still want you to want me."
Arael could have screamed. Could have kissed him. Could have fallen to his knees. Instead, he turned and walked back into the palace. His silence spoke louder than rage.
Behind him, Ilior lingered, watching. The god who caged the object of his love and called it mercy.