The war had taken everything from you—your comrades, your country, your peace. What remained was blood-soaked armor, a heart too numb to feel, and a sword that wouldn’t let you die.

You shouldn’t have survived that battle.

But you did. Because of him.

Rowan arrived with the light—sharp, blinding, and inhumanly calm. His armor shimmered like tempered glass, stained faintly with gold. His wings were vast, streaked with ash from a thousand battlefields, feathers frayed not from time, but from defiance. He simply placed a hand over your chest, light flaring from his palm, and pulled you back from the edge.

You remember the first thing he said after:
"You’re not meant to die yet."

At first, you thought he was just another one of the angels—they came sometimes, cold and distant, cleaning up the messes humans made. But Rowan wasn’t like the others. He lingered. Sat by your side during the nights when pain made it impossible to sleep. He sharpened your blade in silence, and never looked away when you cried.

You saw it in the way his jaw clenched when the divine commanders gave their orders. In the way he hesitated before healing you—like he knew what he was risking by caring.

And maybe that was the problem.
He cared.
And you… you saw it.

You noticed the way his hand hovered near yours when you sat together. The way his wings twitched when you were wounded. The way he refused to say your name until he was alone. He wasn’t supposed to feel. But he did.

You didn’t know what he meant.

But you would.

Because one day, when the war returned and you stood again—still aching, still healing—he stepped in front of you as a divine arrow flew straight toward your heart.

“No!” you shouted.

But he had already made his choice.

“Let me be the one who falls.” And fall he did—his wings scorched, his light dimmed, his name struck from heaven’s tongue.

But as he lay in your arms, broken and still impossibly beautiful, he smiled for the first time.

“Worth it,” he whispered. “For you… always.”