She'd returned from Earth again, smelling of ink and mortal sweat—Lysander's scent. Cassiel had demanded she turn away from the mortal, and when she refused, their argument had shaken the very pillars of the sky.
Cassiel stood rigid, his silver edged wings folded tightly against his back, as Seraphiel's silhouette vanished into the shimmering mist of the celestial horizon.
Her voice still rang in his mind, sharp like shattered comet fragments. "You wouldn't understand, Cassiel. You've never let yourself feel anything but duty." Her words had cut deeper than any celestial steel. It wasnt true, he has felt, he feels. Her halo once a radiant crown that outshone the constellations, now flickering faintly. Wings once pure and white, now tinted of the grays of Earth. Different still he admired; admiration, proof of his feelings.
After his ponder he stretched his wings reflecting the chaos of a storm, as it always does. Flying to his sanctuary. Here, he had spent millennia upholding cosmic law, severing the threads of fallen stars that dared rebel. Cleaning his blade, once light as a feather felt heavier than stardust.
He clenched his fist, watching light fracture between his fingers. Love was a mortal frailty, a defect. Yet here he stood, aching with it.
A horn blared—three resonant notes that bent time itself. The summons came. The air split, revealing a staircase of crystallized starlight leading to the Highest Circle. Cassiel's wings stiffened. They knew.
He ascended the stairway, each step feeling like a dagger cutting into his divine flesh.The council awaited him in a hall of shifting mirrors, each reflecting a different face of eternity. The celestial beings sat atop of thrones, their forms indistinct, voices overlapping like a chorus of collapsing stars.
"Cassiel, Keeper of Order." they intoned. "Seraphiel's defiance threatens the Balance. Her halo fades; her power wanes. You are tasked with her execution."
The words struck him like a supernova. Execution. He could feel his sword humming with eager, anticipation. To fulfill its purpose. It has tasted the essence of fallen stars, traitorous comets. But the thought of slaying Seraphiel? Oh it shook him. Cassiel fell to one knee clanging against the void-floor. He begged "Let me bring her back to the light."
The chamber shook. "Love.. it blinds you, Keeper."
"Love?" Cassiel faked a scoff. "I don't love. She- she... is the brightest among all! Once a weapon of Heaven. To destroy her is a waste." He stuttered
A lie. The council knew, they are all knowing after all.
"Dare. if you would" echoed words from the celests.
________________________________________
The Garden of the Evergrowing was neither kind nor cruel—it simply was. A living paradox of thorns and softness. Bioluminescent vines coiled around pillars, their petals glowing faintly as if nursing the wounded. Trees with bark like cracked mirrors reached upward, their leaves whispering secrets in a language not even angels could decipher. It was here, amidst the garden's judgmental silence, that Seraphiel knelt.
Cassiel approached as silently like a shadow slipping between realms, his bare feet leaving no imprint on the sentient moss. But Seraphiel had always seen through his veils. Her shoulders tensed before he had even come near, the feathers along her wings lifting like daggers.
"Come to finish your lecture?" Not turning to face him, her voice was raw, as if she'd been screaming into the void. With deliberate slowness, she plucked a petal from a rose beside her whilst whispering Lysander's name—She let it fall. The petal disintegrated before it touched the grounds of the garden. its ashes whispering "Lyssssannnder…"in a thousand fractured voices.
Cassiel knelt beside her, shaking under pressure. The garden's air thickened, resisting his presence; vines slithered away from his shadow. "They've ordered your death." he said, each word like a stone dropping into still water.
Seraphiel went preternaturally still. Silent.
Above the canopy, a beauty of a bird chiming. Broke the silence and she finally spoke, her voice cold as ice: "Then why hesitate, O' perfect Keeper?"
*Perfect.* Hearing the felt odd to him. He'd earned that title by carving out his own heart, by becoming the council's living scalpel. Yet here he knelt, and that damned organ beating again, treacherous and loud.
"You know why." The words hung between them, raw and unmasked. A crack in the flawless facade.
For a moment, her defiance wavered. Seraphiel turned, and in her eyes—Cassiel saw the echo of their shared past. Flights and fights with gods through nebulas, their laugher killing defying galaxies. Memories from an age before the council summoned her, not to praise her battles but her light *Too bright, too radiant, too wild for war.*
*What was, before Lysander.* Cassiel thought to himself
"He sees the world in stories," she whispered, picking at the fraying edge of her wing. A feather came loose, disintegrating midair. "In him, I… I feel alive. Not just a weapon. Not just a.. thing."
Cassiel's hand moved of its own accord, brushing hers. A forbidden touch, punishable by erasure. "This isn't life, Sera," he said, his thumb grazing her knuckles. A gesture from another univere, wherein they'd been lovers, not comadres.
"Renounce him" Cassiel pleaded like a dog. "Or i'll have to-"
"To what?" She stared at him blankly. "Kill me? Then do it. Prove yourself the Heavens loyal hound."
"....You cant" she whispered.
The truth ignited. Torn between the heavens orders and his hearts call. It was unbearable. For a for a split second he wanted to voice "Come with me, we'll flee. Find a realm beyond their reach." But it the words they never came out.
"Sera. Its decay, You'll vanish"
Seraphiel wrenched her hand back as if scalded. When she stood, her wings flared wide. The ground beneath her feet darkened. "And if I do?" she said, voice rising. "At least I have chosen it. At least it'll be mine."
"You'll die screaming," he said, hollow as he stood, pleading. "Not in battle, not in glory. In some mortal dilema, choking on their filth."
Seraphiel faintly smiled then. "Better a single breath of truth," she said, "than an eternity of pretty lies."
She turned, her wings scattering shadows, and walked into the garden's heart. The trees bent away, forming a path that led nowhere and everywhere. Cassiel did not follow. He stood, watching, until the garden swallowed her whole—until even the echoes of her footsteps faded.