The morning sun filtered through the thin curtains of Eleanor's room, casting golden stripes across the wooden floorboards. She lay on her back, eyes fixed on the ceiling, still wrapped in disbelief.
A Guardian.
It felt unreal, like a dream she hadn't earned. The uniform folded neatly beside her bed said otherwise; its golden "Z" emblem glinting faintly. Just looking at it made her chest puff out a little, then she quickly deflated, remembering she still had to act like a Guardian. Right, don't trip on your own feet, Eleanor.
A soft but firm knock came at the door.
"Eleanor, you awake?" came Meredith's voice, already sounding like she'd run three laps and brewed coffee while Eleanor was still debating the structural integrity of her ceiling.
"Yeah," she called back, sitting up and stretching her wings with a slight wince. "I'm up."
"Good. Get your Zenith Guard uniform on and meet me out front. We're heading to headquarters to meet the Ascendant ranks."
Eleanor pulled the black robe over her shoulders. It fit perfectly, like it was tailored for her. Despite its dark fabric, it felt light and breathable, like armor made from shadow and wind. Or maybe it was just that well-made. As soon as she fastened the sash, a strange sense of confidence settled over her.
This is real. She was no longer a trainee or a survivor. She was a soldier.
Outside, Meredith was already waiting near the gate, arms folded and wings tucked neatly. She looked like she'd been sculpted from pure efficiency.
"There you are," Meredith said with a hint of amusement, though her expression was as hard to read as a brick wall. "Thought you got your robe stuck."
Eleanor gave her a dry look. "I'm in a good mood today. Don't ruin it, at least not until after I meet the Ascendants." Let me have my moment, Meredith. Just one little moment of feeling cool.
"I will make no such promises," Meredith replied, the corners of her mouth twitching. "Let's walk. We'll take the scenic route through the outer villages first."
They set off through a winding trail; the world quiet except for the rustle of wind through trees. The path led them through a humble village nestled at the forest's edge. Eleanor could tell it was a lower-class settlement; buildings were cracked, winged residents thinner, more weathered. But they still bowed respectfully as the two Zenith Guards passed.
That respect made Eleanor stand a little straighter. Not too much, though. Wouldn't want to accidentally impersonate a peacock.
As they crossed the village square, Meredith suddenly slowed. Two villagers near the well were speaking in hushed, urgent tones.
"It wasn't just any Black Angel," said one, an older angel with a deep scar that looked like he'd argued with a very angry badger. "It was a high-tier one. In the old records, they called him the Phantom Warden. He was massive. Six and a half feet tall, built like a fortress, his wings darker than the void itself."
Eleanor's ears perked up. She glanced sideways at Meredith. "Should we be worried about that?" she whispered. Because 'Phantom Warden' sounds less like a friendly neighborhood spirit and more like 'run for your life.'
"Yes," Meredith said, her expression hardening. "Follow me."
She approached the two villagers with swift purpose. They noticed her robe first, the silver-lined trim of a Zenith Guard, and immediately bowed low, relief flooding their faces.
"Oh, thank the Light," said the older one, practically deflating with relief. "We were just about to send a messenger hawk. Please, you have to help us."
"We overheard," Meredith said curtly. "You mentioned a high-tier Black Angel?"
"Yes," he replied, wringing his hands. "I saw him myself. I tried to warn the others, but no one believed me. They said there'd be signs: black feathers, corrupted ground. But this one... he covers his tracks. Like he knows exactly when I'm coming back with witnesses. The evidence just vanishes."
A younger villager stepped forward, clearly shaken, looking like he'd seen a ghost and then been asked to draw it from memory. "I saw him too. He moves like a phantom; fast, silent. Took three villagers last night. No screams, no blood. Just... they just vanished."
Meredith listened with practiced calm, her expression showing nothing. Eleanor, however, felt a cold dread creep up her spine. Vanished? Like socks in a dryer? After a moment, Meredith nodded. "We'll handle it."
The villagers breathed out in visible relief, bowing again as if Meredith had just personally invented breathable air.
As Meredith turned away, she cast Eleanor a meaningful glance. "Looks like we've got a detour," she said grimly. "We're going hunting for the Phantom Warden."
Eleanor blinked. "The Phantom Warden? From the old war reports? I thought he was just a legend, a story to keep young angels from wandering too far." Like the boogeyman, but with extra-spooky wings.
Meredith's expression didn't change. "Legends don't make villagers disappear. If he's even half what the records claim, he's dangerous and cunning."
Eleanor frowned. "But where do we even start? He's not leaving tracks, right?" She imagined trying to track a ghost with a blindfold on.
Meredith glanced back at the two villagers. "We start with witnesses. If he's covering his trail, we need someone who's been close enough to understand his methods."
She turned toward the older villager. "You. Walk us through what you saw. Precise details. Time, location, anything unusual."
The villager straightened, his voice gaining strength as if given permission to be brave. "It was just after sunrise, about a week ago. I was helping rebuild the eastern fence when I saw something move along the treeline. It was a tall figure, dark wings, broad shoulders. I thought it might be a Guardian patrol until he vanished mid-step. Like the light itself bent around him."
Meredith's eyes narrowed. "And you didn't report it immediately?"
"I tried," the man said, guilt flashing across his weathered face. "But he didn't attack me. Just... watched. Then he vanished like smoke. I thought maybe I'd imagined it. But the others weren't so fortunate."
The younger villager stepped forward, his voice strained. "We've lost six people in total. Men and women, all taken in broad daylight when no one else was watching. He doesn't just vanish; he chooses precisely when to be seen."
Eleanor raised an eyebrow. "That's different. Most Black Angels aren't that calculating. They usually prefer the 'scream and flail wildly' approach."
"There's more," the younger villager added, his voice dropping to a near whisper. "He leaves something behind. No feathers, no blood. But Symbols, burned into trees and carved into stone. One of them looked like an inverted halo."
That got Meredith's immediate attention. It was like someone had just mentioned her favorite brand of highly effective, highly illegal combat boots.
"An inverted halo," she repeated quietly, her voice sharp with recognition. "Divine corruption."
She turned to Eleanor, her expression deadly serious. "Cliffside woods. That's our target zone."
"What about the symbols?" Eleanor asked.
"If he's leaving marks," Meredith said, already moving toward the forest edge, "he's either baiting us or marking territory. Either way, we flush him out and end this before more innocent people disappear." She sounded like she was about to flush a particularly stubborn toilet.
They moved swiftly through the undergrowth, wings folded low, weapons ready. The morning sun began to cast strange shadows through the tree canopy, shadows that stretched in directions they shouldn't, creating an unnatural twilight. The woods twisted around them like a living thing, making Eleanor feel like she was walking through a funhouse mirror maze.
One second, Eleanor stood beside Meredith, her axe drawn. The next, the world blinked, and she was alone.
Gone was the steady sound of her mentor's footsteps. Gone was the familiar forest trail.
The Phantom Warden had separated them. Not far, but enough. Enough to make Eleanor's stomach do a nervous little flip.
The trees were different now. They were taller, more twisted, their shadows impossibly long for morning light. Even the air felt wrong, thin and sterile, like she'd stepped into a painting rather than the real world. Or maybe a really poorly rendered video game level.
"Meredith?" Eleanor called out, her voice echoing strangely, swallowed by the oppressive silence.
No answer. Only oppressive silence. And the faint, unsettling sound of her own heartbeat drumming against her ribs.
And then, "You shine bright, but not bright enough."
The voice curled around her like smoke, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere. It vibrated through her bones, soft yet filled with ancient evil. It sounded like someone scraping rusty nails across a chalkboard, inside her skull.
She spun, axe raised defensively, ready to face whatever shadowy horror was speaking.
Nothing.
Then, a flicker of movement.
He emerged from the shadow of a tree that cast no shadow, the Phantom Warden himself. His white eyes gleamed like twin moons in the artificial gloom. His massive wings seemed to drag the very light behind him, leaving trails of darkness. Despite his huge size, he moved with a smooth grace, like a particularly annoyed python.
"Why do you serve them?" his voice whispered from multiple directions, a ghostly surround sound. "The ones who send children to die? The Zenith Guard? The angels who believe themselves righteous?"
Eleanor's grip tightened on her weapon. "I serve to protect the innocent." And to avoid having my head caved in by shadowy freaks, but that's less heroic-sounding.
"Innocent?" He laughed, a sound like breaking glass, or maybe a thousand tiny glass shards being crunched underfoot. "Your parents died screaming under their banner, and the Light did nothing. Nothing but watch as they burned."
Eleanor's blood ran cold. The comfortable warmth of her new uniform suddenly felt like a freezing shroud. "Don't you dare speak about them."
"But I must," he said, his grin widening to reveal teeth like black diamonds. Great, so he's got fancy dental work too. "Mariam wants you angry. Rage makes you so much easier to read."
She lunged without thinking, her axe cutting through empty air. She might as well have been swinging at a particularly stubborn gust of wind.
He'd moved again, blinking through the twisted light like it was water. A flicker to her right, his wingtip vanishing behind a gnarled tree trunk.
"You don't belong to the Light," he whispered from the shadows, his voice a poisonous lullaby. "You belong to grief. You belong to loss. You belong... to her."
Another flicker of movement.
She felt the impact before she saw him. Clawed fingers slammed into her back, sending her tumbling into a moss-covered mound of roots. Her robe tore. Her wings screamed with pain, feeling like someone had decided to play tug-of-war with her very bones.
But she stood anyway. Because apparently, I'm a glutton for punishment.
"You think that hurt?" she growled, spitting dirt. "Try harder." It came out sounding more like a challenge than she intended, which, given the circumstances, might have been a bad idea.
The Warden appeared fully this time. His form became solid with a hiss of heat-distorted air, showing the full extent of his evil. Where his feet touched the ground, the grass withered black. He's literally killing the grass. What a jerk.
"I'll peel back those wings and see what's left beneath that righteous fire," he snarled, his voice a low, guttural rumble.
Eleanor stared at him, breathing hard. Her hands trembled, not with fear, but with barely contained fury. A furnace had just been lit inside her, and it was quickly reaching its breaking point.
"You want to see my fire?" she said, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper, like the quiet before a thunderclap.
She closed her eyes.
In that moment, her mind returned to the clearing where everything changed. Her mother's broken body. Her father's final, gasping breath. The smell of smoke and blood.
The pain wasn't fuel. It was the match.
Divine Art: Sunfire ignited.
Her body exploded in golden radiance, waves of divine heat radiating outward like a newborn star. The flames wrapped around her axe, her arms, her wings, transforming her into something between angel and living flame. Her hair whipped around her face in glowing arcs, and her eyes blazed with inner light. She probably looked like a very angry, very shiny Christmas ornament.
The Phantom Warden actually pulled back, his white eyes widening in what looked suspiciously like genuine surprise.
"That power!" he hissed, the smooth, confident voice now laced with a hint of real alarm. "You haven't earned the right to wield Sunfire!"
"I earned this," Eleanor said, her voice resonating with divine authority, each word a hammer blow of pure conviction. "Every bruise. Every sleepless night. Every scream I swallowed. Every tear I refused to shed."
She launched herself at him with explosive speed. This time, he didn't disappear fast enough.
The first strike carved across his chest, divine fire searing through corrupted flesh with a sickening sizzle. The second sliced deep into his side, leaving trails of golden flame.
He roared, his wings snapping outward like an angry cape, but she was already beneath him, slashing upward in a brilliant arc of Sunfire. She was a golden blur, a whirlwind of burning rage.
"You want to know what I've learned?" Eleanor shouted over the crackling flames, her voice a roar that shook the very air. "Pain doesn't make you weak, it makes you unstoppable!"
The Warden tried to vanish again, his form beginning to shimmer, but she'd learned to read his patterns. The moment his body started to disappear, she drove her axe into the exact space where he would reappear. It was a gamble, but she felt a strange certainty, as if the Light itself was guiding her aim.
The blade connected with a sound like thunder, followed by a wet, tearing rip.
His form jerked, caught halfway between solid and mist, unable to complete the transition. He looked like a glitching video game character.
Eleanor pressed her advantage, Sunfire flaring brighter and hotter until the very air around them shimmered. With a final, primal scream, she drove the axe clean through his torso, divine flames consuming him from within.
The Phantom Warden didn't scream. He simply looked at her with something almost resembling respect. Or maybe just bewilderment that a "child" had just turned him into a bonfire.
"She will... remember you for this..." he whispered, his voice fading with his existence.
Then he crumbled into ash, scattering like black snow on an unfelt wind, leaving behind only the scent of ozone and burnt corruption.
The warped reality around them shuddered and collapsed. The twisted trees straightened, the unnatural shadows retreated, and normal daylight returned to the forest. Eleanor dropped to one knee, her body still glowing faintly with leftover Sunfire. Her robe was torn, her hands ached, but she was alive. And surprisingly, still in one piece.
A heavy thud announced Meredith's landing beside her. She looked at Eleanor, then at the scorched earth where the Warden had fallen. "Took me longer than I'd like to break through his spatial distortion," Meredith muttered, sounding vaguely annoyed, as if the Warden had merely inconvenienced her commute. "He separated us deliberately; he wanted you isolated and vulnerable."
She looked down at the scattered ashes, then at Eleanor with something approaching pride. "I didn't expect you to handle a high-tier Black Angel alone on your first day. You fought well." Her expression grew serious. "Did he say anything before the end?"
Eleanor nodded, wiping soot from her face. "He knew about Mariam. About me. He'd been watching, gathering information."
Meredith's jaw tightened. "Then the real battle is beginning."
Eleanor stood, brushing ash from her torn sleeve. Despite her exhaustion, her eyes burned with newfound determination. "I'll be ready for whatever comes next." Especially if "whatever comes next" involves a hot bath and a very large meal.
Meredith gave her a rare, sharp smile. "You will be. But first..." She pointed toward the path leading away from the village. "We have Ascendant ranks waiting at headquarters. They'll want to hear about this encounter, and more importantly, they'll want to see what you can do."
They walked side by side through the dappled forest light, leaving behind only scorched earth and the broken symbol of an inverted halo burned into the ancient roots, a chilling reminder of what had just transpired