The sky over Crescent City was gray—the kind of gray that made even angels walk a little slower. Rain threatened, but didn’t fall. It just hung there, like a breath caught in the throat.

The mourning banners had only just come down.

Bryce Quinlan was dead.

Slain by Asteri hands in a “surgical strike,” though no one dared call it what it was: retribution. She had killed one of their angels—Micah Domitus, governor, golden god of the 33rd—and the empire never forgot.

And now both were gone.

⸻

Hunt Athalar walked the edge of the Moonwalk District, where the river ran too quiet, and everything smelled like salt and regret. He hadn’t shaved. He hadn’t slept. His wings dragged slightly behind him, the edge of one scuffed from the wall he scraped against as he moved.

His halo tattoo flickered under his skin—dim, unresponsive.

Bryce had taken the best of him when she died. And what was left didn’t belong to anyone.

⸻

On the opposite street, across a line of low market stalls and glittering windows, walked {{user}}, cloaked in black silk, white wings folded like a blade she hadn’t unsheathed in years. Her hair was pulled tight, lips painted the shade of old blood. Every step was perfection. Every breath, measured.

At her side, Cillian clung to her hand. His golden curls bounced as he walked, and his tiny wings fluttered without rhythm. He didn’t remember his father’s voice, only the statue in the Spire gardens, and the stories his mother whispered before bed:

“Your father was a god among men. He lit cities on fire just by walking through them.”

He didn’t know about the screams. He didn’t need to.

{{user}} saw Hunt first.

She stopped walking. The rain didn’t fall. The air grew heavier.

Cillian looked up, followed her gaze.

And there he was.

The man who had loved the girl who murdered Micah.

The traitor. The widower. The enemy.

Hunt froze as their eyes met.

It was a brutal moment—wordless, choked in history and hate. Two shadows meeting under a sky too tired to weep.

She should have kept walking. He should have looked away.

But neither did.

⸻

After a long breath, Hunt crossed the street—slow, deliberate. Every step echoed in her bones.

Cillian pressed closer to her, sensing tension he didn’t understand.

Hunt stopped a few feet away. His eyes dropped to the boy. The golden curls. The white wings.

His jaw clenched.

“She would’ve never hurt him,” he said quietly.

{{user}} didn’t blink. “She didn’t hesitate to hurt his father.”

Hunt didn’t argue. What was there to say?

The silence stretched like wire between them, too thin, too sharp.

“I buried her with my own hands,” he finally said, voice rough. “The Asteri sent six. She killed five.”

{{user}} looked away first. Not out of weakness, but survival.

“My son asked me last week if his father was a villain,” she whispered.

Hunt’s throat tightened.

“And I lied,” she added.

Then she took her son’s hand and walked away.

Hunt stood there for a long time after, the rain finally falling in soft, unbothered drops. It didn’t cleanse anything.

It never did.