The sky above Valebridge wept silver.
Not a storm, not even real rain—but a slow, constant drizzle conjured by the Radiants to "purify" the city. It glistened against broken statues of saints, bleeding from hollow eyes, and soaked through the banners of the Inquisition lining the streets. What had once been holy shimmered now like ruin dressed in gold.
Beneath the city, beneath the Cathedral of Radiance itself, Kael followed Riven through flooded catacombs, the water lapping at their boots, black and cold. Emberlight flickered in her palm, casting jagged shadows across damp stone carved in an older tongue.
"They built the cathedral over this," she muttered, brushing her fingers across the wall, tracing a glyph shaped like a flame pierced by a feather. "A monument to lies. Standing on the bones of truth."
Kael slowed, staring at the symbols etched into the rock. Some had been scrubbed out, others sealed beneath wax and warding sigils. His pulse throbbed with memory.
"I've seen this place," he said. "In the visions. But it wasn't... drowned."
"It wasn't," Riven whispered. "They flooded it after the purge."
Kael didn't ask who they were. He already knew.
The air changed as they moved deeper—thicker, like it resisted them. Their breath steamed. Kael's hand tightened around his soaked cloak, the weight of the hidden shard of Azariel's tomb still pressing against his chest. Since unsealing it, something inside him had... shifted. Not just the visions. The light and fire warred in his blood, pushing against each other, trying to consume or blend.
He hadn't slept in two nights.
And when he closed his eyes, it wasn't death he dreamed of—it was Azariel. Standing in the heart of a storm, arms wide, protecting those behind him while the sky burned.
A protector.
A demon king.
Not the monster the Church had described.
They stopped before a great stone door, half-submerged in black water. It was marked with a cracked sun and broken halos—the emblem of the Truthwardens, the lost order of angel-demon hybrids who had once stood between the world and the Radiant rewriting of it.
"Ready?" Riven asked softly.
Kael nodded.
But before she could move, the entire corridor blazed with gold.
A pillar of divine flame split the catacombs, turning water to steam. Radiant spears hummed with energy. From above, like judgment made flesh, Seraphiel descended.
His wings were halos of fire, unfurled wide. His eyes glowed like stars, cold and ancient. Behind him, Inquisitors emerged—faces hidden beneath metallic masks shaped like solemn gods, each one holding a burning spear or an orb of purifying light.
Kael's heart pounded.
Riven stepped in front of him.
"Heresy ends here," Seraphiel said, voice like a choir of knives. "Surrender the hybrid, and your death will be painless."
Kael stepped forward despite himself, his shadow long in the golden light. "You fear me," he said, low. "Because I carry truth."
Seraphiel's smile was blade-thin. "No. I pity you, Kael Virellius. You're still naïve enough to believe truth matters in a world we already own."
The spears ignited.
Then—light shattered.
A silver rift tore through the chamber, and a pillar of raw, unfiltered power exploded between the two forces. Radiance screamed and recoiled. Inquisitors fell back, shielding their eyes.
From the heart of the rupture, a figure emerged—armor blackened by flame, one wing tattered and scorched, the other dragging like a broken banner. Her face was a study in scars—one eye gold and molten, the other seared shut.
"Enough," Elyra growled, stepping between Kael and Seraphiel.
Seraphiel's expression curdled. "You dare raise arms against your own kind?"
"I dare remember," Elyra said. "I dare mourn what we destroyed."
She threw back her cloak—and from within it, drew a small relic.
A jagged shard of crystal, etched with shifting runes that pulsed with ghostlight.
The Veil of Light.
Or a piece of it.
Seraphiel flinched, just a little.
Elyra held it aloft. "The Veil is cracked. And so is your illusion."
He moved first.
They clashed in a flash of gold and silver, their blades singing as they met, old steel forged from old sins. Their duel shattered walls, sent waves of energy through the flooded chamber. Sigils on the walls lit and died. Dust fell like ash. Inquisitors ran.
Riven grabbed Kael's hand. "We need to move—now."
They slipped into the shadows, ducking behind a broken mural that once showed an angel healing the sick. Now, it was crumbling—revealing the original carving beneath: an angel branding chains onto kneeling prisoners.
Kael watched the battle above with wide eyes.
Elyra moved like a revenant, striking not to kill—but to make Seraphiel remember. Her words echoed between blows:
"You ordered the purge."
"You called us saviors while we silenced their minds."
"You let the world worship a lie."
Seraphiel roared and vanished in a burst of Radiant fire.
The Inquisitors either lay dead or were fleeing.
Silence returned—broken only by the drip of water and Elyra's slow, limping steps.
She turned to Kael, handed him the shard.
"I'm not here to save you," she said, voice raw. "I'm here because someone has to remember. This is part of the Veil. We used it to rewrite what we were. Touch it... and you'll see."
Kael stared at it.
Then, slowly, he reached out.
The moment his skin touched the shard—reality fractured.
He was no longer in the catacombs.
He was then.
An army of angels descended—not in glory, but in wrath. Cities burning. People screaming. Temples desecrated not by demons—but by Seraphiel's command.
He saw minds wiped clean, memories pulled like threads from a loom.
And in a sacred chamber, before an altar wrapped in silver flame, a young Seraphiel whispered into a burning orb:
"Let them forget. Let them worship us."
Kael collapsed, breath shaking.
His hands trembled.
Riven caught him before he fell into the water.
He looked up into Elyra's scarred face, his own carved now with knowledge he couldn't unsee.
Elyra didn't smile.
She only asked, "Now that you know… what will you do with it?"
Kael stared down at the shard.
And the flame in his blood began to burn brighter.