POV: Kael
The hospital was a hive of frantic, dying energy, but I moved through it as a ghost of ice. To the humans, I was nothing more than a sudden, unseasonable draft that made them pull their cardigans tighter. To the Divine Realm, I was the "loyal executioner," the one who never asked why, only when.
But today, the air tasted wrong. It tasted like August.
I stopped at the end of the fourth-floor corridor. August's signature was everywhere—a sloppy, bleeding trail of hesitation and "Darkness Aether". He was trying to shroud something, to hide a soul that Thalor had already marked for harvest.
Fool, I thought, though the word felt strangely hollow in my chest. You cannot hide a sun with a handful of smoke.
I felt a faint, rhythmic thrumming beneath the floorboards—the "fate-altering essence" of the girl. It was a frequency I should have hated. As a Death Aetherial, her very existence was a disruption of the "celestial balance" I was sworn to protect. Yet, as I drew closer to Room 412, a "visceral pain" sparked in my own mind, a jagged shard of a memory I shouldn't have possessed.
I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a vending machine glass. Cold, unyielding, immortal. I had traded everything—my kin, my prophecy, my very "Elarin heritage"—to survive the Great Collapse. Thalor had promised me peace in exchange for my "ruthless" service, but looking at August's desperate attempt to save the girl, I felt a "growing curiosity" that felt like treason.
Why was the Creator so afraid of her? And why did the sight of August—my old friend, the "Light Aetherial" who used to believe in marriage blessings—shielding her make my own "cold loyalty" feel like a cage?.
I reached the door. I could feel them inside: the fallen angel and the "last descendant". I could end this in a heartbeat. I could claim the soul and return to the "Divine Realm" as the hero of the status quo.
Instead, I paused. My hand hovered over the door handle, trembling with an "instinctive recognition" of a bloodline I was supposed to have forgotten.
"August," I murmured, the name feeling heavy on my tongue. "Don't make me do this. Don't make me remember what I am.".
I stepped into the room, my boots crunching on the thin layer of ice forming on the linoleum.
August was standing in front of her bed, his posture defensive, his eyes wide with a terror I hadn't seen since the day his wings were torn away.
"Step aside, August," I said. I tried to keep my voice the flat, "ruthless" monotone Thalor expected of his executioner, but it felt brittle.
"I can't, Kael," August rasped. He didn't raise a weapon; he just stood there, his "empathy" a shield that was useless against a blade like me. "You know what she is. You know what he's been doing to her in every cycle."
"I know she is a disruption," I countered, moving closer. My gaze shifted to the girl. Esmeralda. She looked so fragile, yet the "dormant force" within her was humming, a frequency that made my own "Elarin" blood—the blood I had betrayed—sing in recognition.
August moved, grabbing my forearm. His touch was warm, a ghost of the Light Aetherial he used to be. "Kael, look at her. Really look. Does she look like a monster to you? Or does she look like the people we used to protect before we became Thalor's shadows?"
I looked. She wasn't cowering. She was watching me with a "haunting familiarity," her eyes reflecting a past I had spent eons trying to bury. For a second, the sterile hospital room vanished, replaced by the fire and screams of the "Great Collapse"—the day I traded my soul and my kin for the cold gift of "immortality".
"She is the last of us," August whispered, his voice thick with a "visceral pain". "If you kill her, Kael, there is nothing left of the Elarin. Not even the memory."
My grip on the invisible blade tightened. I felt "secretly haunted," the "cold loyalty" I had worn like armor beginning to crack under the weight of his words. I was "Thalor's most loyal" servant, but in this small, freezing room, the "Creator's" gaze felt a million miles away, and the girl's heartbeat felt like my own.
"Thalor demands her soul immediately," I said, my voice finally wavering. "If I don't take it, he will come himself. And you know what he does to failures, August."