The forest was quiet.
Too quiet.
Even the wind felt hesitant to return.
Angel sat beneath a shattered tree trunk, legs pulled to his chest, cloak wrapped around him like armor that couldn't protect what mattered. The starlight filtered through broken branches and bloodied leaves, but none of it reached his eyes.
He hadn't moved in an hour.
Not since the assassin fell.
Not since the blade vanished.
Not since the silence came.
❖ ❖ ❖
I killed him.
That thought repeated over and over. A drumbeat in the hollows of his skull.
I killed him.
No fantasy. No fiction. No imagined ending.
A real man. A real death. By his hand.
And the blade… that katana… where had it come from?
He hadn't imagined it—it had answered him.
That pressure. That weight. It wasn't just magic. It was command.
And he had wielded it without thought—like it had been waiting for him all along.
What am I becoming?
Angel exhaled, but it shook too much to be breath. His chest ached from broken ribs. Blood still trickled down the side of his face. But he didn't heal himself. He didn't summon a spell. He didn't even whisper.
He just… stared at the forest floor. At the scorched line that split through the earth like a scar no time could mend.
Then footsteps.
Cautious. Familiar.
Silas emerged from the shadows, his grimoire open, still humming. His expression was unreadable—but not surprised.
"I felt the spike from the tower," he said flatly. "You nearly broke the barrier between the physical and the dream-state."
Angel didn't respond.
Silas crouched beside him, eyes narrowing slightly. "You're bleeding."
Angel wiped his mouth absently with his sleeve.
"He tried to kill me," he whispered.
"I figured."
"He threatened Marina."
Silas paused. His voice softened—barely. "And so you erased him."
Angel finally looked up. "Are you going to tell the others?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because now they know you're not just a story." Silas stood slowly. "You're a warning."
Angel turned back toward the blackened path of energy that stretched like a wound through the trees.
Silas continued, "This place… the Academy, the kingdoms, the clans—they're all built on fear. Power terrifies them. Power that can't be classified? Even more."
"I didn't want this," Angel muttered.
"No one wants to be a weapon," Silas said. "But sometimes the world draws your blade before you do."
That hit too close.
Angel winced, then slowly pushed himself up, wobbling on shaky legs. Silas caught his arm, steadying him with one hand, flipping his grimoire closed with the other.
"Go home, Angel. Clean the blood off. Sleep. Let the pain in."
"Why?"
"Because if you don't feel it now, you'll lose the part of yourself that still knows it matters."
Angel stared at him—at the only person in the entire Academy who hadn't flinched since the moment they met.
"I'm not like you, Silas."
"No," he said. "You're not. You're worse."
He said it like a compliment.
❖ ❖ ❖
That night, Angel stood before his mirror, shirt off, staring at the bruises and blood across his ribs. His skin bore the story of survival, but his eyes held something deeper.
Not rage.
Not pride.
Not even fear.
Just weight.
He ran his fingers through his hair, sighing, leaning against the cold marble of the basin.
Is this who I'm meant to be?
He thought about the old rooftop. The city. The lights.
His past self, wondering what came after death.
This. This was the answer.
But it wasn't reincarnation—it was consequence.
A knock on the door.
He tensed—but it was soft. Familiar.
"Angel?" Marina's voice. "I had a dream. Can I stay with you?"
His breath hitched. He wiped his eyes and opened the door.
She stood there in her little nightgown, holding the toy fox he'd made from light and string. Her eyes were red from crying.
He bent down, picked her up carefully—his ribs protesting—and carried her to bed.
She curled beside him, small fingers clutching his robe.
"Did you have a bad dream too?" she whispered.
Angel stared at the ceiling.
"No," he said quietly. "I think I became one."