She watched from the rafters where no mortal eye could see — not fully. Not unless they bore the Sight, or the marks of fire.
The Chroniclers' gathering hall was a tapestry of quiet tension, threads woven from memory and hidden truths. And in its center, he stood — his violin held like a fragile answer to a question no one dared ask aloud.
When he began to play, her breath caught.
The sound was gentle, unassuming. But layered beneath each note were echoes of something older — tones that shimmered against the bones of the world. The kind of music that remembered.
She had heard such music only once before. In the time before the fall.
It was dangerous.
She stepped forward slightly, bare feet silent against the curved beams of stone and rune-wood. Ash followed her, faint and ghost-like. Her wings flickered into view, then faded — not fully gone, never gone, only hidden.
He played a phrase that brushed the edge of grief. And without meaning to, he reached her.
She had come close to revealing herself again. Foolish. Reckless. The others would feel the ripple — even now, she could sense the council's subtle stirrings. Truth-binding had been activated. A memory-scry flickered briefly in the upper circle.
If she appeared now, they would mark him. They would name him.
And he was not yet ready for that weight.
But he will be, she thought.
The last note of his song faded, and silence answered it. Not cold, but deep — like a well of waiting things.
She let herself linger for one moment longer, watching him lower his instrument. Watching the girl — the Chronicler's daughter — stare at him as if seeing something take shape.
The angel turned away.
Ash gathered around her like breath. Her form shimmered, fractured, and faded.
She did not see the glowing thread of light that lingered between them even after she vanished — thin as spider silk, delicate as a bond half-forged.
But she felt its pull.
And the dark star pulsed once in the heavens above, unseen by most.
But not by her.
Never by her.