Lyra emerged from the utility shaft into a blizzard of concrete dust and steam. The collapse of the Foundry Block was an act of pure, contained violence a physical manifestation of the silver-eyed man's desperate power.
She paused only long enough to cough the grit from her lungs and reorient her internal map. The noise and confusion were a gift. Police sirens, corporate security teams, and Cathedra cleanup crews converged on the collapsed structure, distracted by the spectacle. No one was looking for a single, small woman fleeing the disaster.
He's insane, she thought, shoving down the lingering warmth of his touch and the terror of the Flight of Vultures. He sacrificed his last defence to buy me twenty minutes.
Azael. The name hummed, a dangerous frequency just below her hearing. He had ordered her to run, to forget. And for a moment, emerging from the cold metal chute, the urge to find the nearest data terminal and book a ticket to anywhere else was overwhelming.
Resistance.
She was a journalist. She did not follow orders; she hunted information. She used her journalistic cynicism like a shield against the divine, burning truth. Her fear was real, but the secret carried by this impossible man the secret that had caused a millennia-old angel to break the laws of physics and risk eternal damnation was the biggest story in human history.
The Hilt of Sanctus. That was the key not the man.
Lyra activated the tracking overlay on her ocular implant, filtering the raw energy trace she'd pulled from the downed Aegis Hand. The trace was weak, but distinct: the Hilt was moving.
It was headed deep into the Cathedra District, a sector of the Shattered City that was aggressively sanitised, patrolled by high-altitude drones, and choked with white, oppressive security checkpoints. The heart of Seraphiel's control.
The coordinates resolved to a decommissioned cargo hub known as the Ascension Transit Zone. It was a high-security lockbox, used to move valuable goods between the city and the Cathedral's hidden main facility. The only reason Seraphiel's forces would move a 'dead' artefact with such speed and security was if they knew exactly what it wasnd its true value.
She wove through the crowded streets, merging with the flow of oblivious mortals. The closer she got to the Ascension Zone, the heavier the spiritual atmosphere became, like walking into an invisible pressure cooker. She felt an unnatural alertness not her own, but an instinctive response to the encroaching presence of holiness.
She reached the perimeter of the Cathedra District, a line marked by aggressive neon signs warning against loitering and the silent, watchful gaze of the patrol drones. She found a temporary observation perch on the fire escape of an abandoned tenement, affording her a clear, safe view of the transit zone.
It was a fortress. Armoured vehicles flanked the cargo bay doors, and the air shimmered with an unseen energy shield likely a sanctified barrier meant to block demonic intrusion.
As she watched the armoured guards methodically prepare for the shipment, a prickle of unease ran down her spine, colder and more unsettling than the angelic presence.
This was not the sterile, focused dread of Heaven's hunters. This was an ancient, predatory malice.
Lyra slowly turned her head. Across the street, standing in the deep shadow of an archway that should have been too dark to hide anything, was a figure. Tall, utterly still, and cloaked in heavy, black clerical robes.
She couldn't make out his face, which was obscured by the deep hood and the heavy, metallic sheen of a stylised collar. But she saw his hands long, pale, adorned with thick, silver rings that caught the sickly yellow light. His stillness was profound, the kind of absolute stillness that suggests immense, coiled power.
He was watching the Ascension Zone, just as she was, waiting for the Hilt.
Not Heaven. Something else.
The figure shifted, and Lyra caught a flash of something dark and complex etched into the metal of his robes—a pattern of interlinked serpentine sigils that felt profoundly wrong, like the negative image of a crucifix.
The Black Cardinal. The name was an immediate, chilling whisper in the dark, conspiratorial corners of the city she investigated. Hell's representative.
A sudden, sharp spike of anxiety made Lyra gasp, forcing her to look away from the Black Cardinal. It was an internal alarm, not generated by her fear of the robed figure, but by a sudden, intense sense of proximity.
The Saint. He was near.
The painful, forbidden thread between them had suddenly tightened. He was wounded, she knew, having felt his exhaustion in their shared moment of contact, but he was closing the distance, drawn by the same magnetic pull of his sealed weapon.
She scanned the street frantically. She didn't see him. He was using the shadows, the chaotic flow of traffic, the dust and confusion he had created. He was suppressing his own light. But he was here.
He's going to get himself killed. He's going to pay the ultimate price for a piece of metal.
The realisation was a crushing weight. He was ready to sacrifice his last chance at life his one-time Regenesis just to ensure she was safe from the forces chasing his power. The cold cynicism she had been clinging to dissolved. She wasn't fighting for a story anymore. She was fighting for his life.
Lyra reached into her satchel for a small, magnetic drone. She had to get the Hilt. She had to get him his weapon back, or she would watch him burn again, this time by Heaven's hand.
She lowered the drone into the street, aiming it toward a rarely-used maintenance duct just outside the perimeter. The Cathedra's sanctified barrier was designed to repel celestial and demonic forces, but it wasn't proof against a small, human-operated machine.
She had been running toward the truth. Now, she was running toward a lover she didn't remember, running to protect the man who had shattered a world for her.
Find the Hilt. Find him. And then tell him exactly why I won't let him leave me again.
Taking a deep breath, Lyra pulled out her last vial of military-grade thermal suppressant spray and began her infiltration of the Cathedra's perimeter. Both Heaven and Hell were waiting for that Hilt, but Lyra was going to take it first.