chill ran through the palace halls—not from cold, but from something approaching.
Azrael, Prince of Hell, stood on the balcony of his private tower, the obsidian sky mirrored in his dark eyes. His senses, sharpened beyond human measure, twitched at the disturbance.
Something was coming.
Something foreign.
He closed his eyes.
A spark of golden light, faint but unmistakable, pierced through the fabric between worlds. The scent of divinity lingered in the air—soft, disciplined, and terrifyingly familiar.
Hestia.
He smiled, but it wasn't friendly. It was sharp, knowing, dangerous.
"She's coming," he whispered, almost to himself.
Behind him, three figures stirred. Azazel, a fire-touched fox with eyes like molten gold. Lyria, a shadow-winged girl who could slip through walls and vanish into darkness. And Kora, a horned girl with silver hair and the power to twist illusions into reality.
"Sense it too, don't you?" Azrael asked, voice low.
The trio nodded, each sensing the same disturbance—the arrival of the mortal world's mysterious visitor.
Azrael stretched, his wings folding neatly behind him. "She remembers herself," he murmured, almost a growl. "No tricks. No veil. She will come as she is."
Lyria tilted her head, her shadowed wings fluttering slightly. "Do you want her to come quietly… or do we greet her properly?"
Azrael's gaze sharpened. "We wait. Watch. Test. Learn."
The non-human academy was quiet this morning, as if the school itself knew. Azrael's kind—the other princes, nobles, and supernatural students—were already whispering rumors. A divine presence was crossing into their world.
"Soon," Azrael said, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. "And then, the real game begins."
Even as he spoke, he felt her closer. The golden glow that marked Hestia's approach brushed the edge of his perception. The human world was not yet aware, but he already knew:
This was no ordinary Cupid.
And she was no ordinary threat.