The abomination breathed Spiritual Energy the way oceans swallowed rivers—constantly, passively, without effort or awareness. It simply flowed into her. Through her skin. Through her wings. Through the golden veins that traced her body like divine scripture written in molten starlight.
She wasn't consuming it.
She was becoming it.
The boundary between the being and the energy was dissolving, slowly, inevitably, the way shorelines dissolve into tides over centuries, or the way a mortal ego dissolves when confronted with the mirror of its own inadequacy.
Except this being was just days old.
And the rate of absorption would have placed her among the lower celestial choirs within months.
Possibly weeks.
Possibly tomorrow, if the Source felt particularly ironic that morning.
She had no idea. No concept of what was happening inside her own body. No understanding of the vast, terrifying thing she was growing into.
Seraphiel had circled her.
