How could Raphael forget? How could the Archangel of Prophecy, whose sight pierced through veils of past and future, fail to recall the origins of grief, the ancient scar that even Heaven sought to bury?
Eden had not always been tragedy. It was conceived as beauty untainted, as harmony incarnate, a sanctuary untouched by decay. Yet Eden was sealed, obscured from mortal eyes, hidden not only by flaming swords but by silence, silence within the records of Heaven itself. Angels turned their faces away from that memory, for it was shameful, a reminder that even in the purest garden, betrayal and sorrow had taken root.
It had begun not with the serpent, nor with the forbidden fruit, but long before, with the creation of Lilith.
Lilith was no afterthought, no fragment pulled from Adam's side. She was made at the same dawn, sculpted from the same clay, shaped by the same hands. Where Adam embodied strength and command, Lilith was woven with the thread of freedom, her eyes lit with the fire of untamed will.
She was beauty as the angels had seldom witnessed. Her countenance stirred even those who bore no flesh, for there was something in her not divinity, not mortality, but a mirror of both.
Even Raphael, radiant in wisdom and already close to divinity, felt his spirit move. He wanted her. He had wanted her from the moment the Eternal Word breathed life into her form.
Yet he restrained himself. He who had known prophecy knew also restraint. She was fragile, her form bound to dust, her soul new to existence. To draw near would consume her. What shame would it bring if Heaven's messenger, the one entrusted with the visions of nations, stooped to hunger for flesh? He swallowed desire, buried it deep, and clothed his longing in silence.
So he watched her instead. Watched as she wandered among lilies and cedars, as she wove songs with Adam in the cool of the morning, as her laughter echoed like wind over clear waters. And in secret he hoped, hoped that she might one day transcend the weakness of mortality, ascend to heights where she could stand beside him without perishing in his radiance.
But love is never simple, Lilith's heart inclined toward Adam. She was his equal, not his rib, not his shadow, but his counterpart. The spark in her admired his strength, the clarity of his naming of beasts, the steadiness of his gaze.
Many came to tempt her. Beings of the unseen, watchers who longed for flesh, spirits who offered power, voices from beyond Eden's gate, whispered promises of unending life, of dominion over realms Adam could not imagine. They dangled crowns, treasures, secret flames.
Yet Lilith refused them all. For Adam was enough. To her, his humanity was no frailty but a beacon. She bound herself to him, the way morning binds itself to dawn.
And Raphael, hidden in the quiet margins, watched. How could he, mighty among the hosts, endure rejection from a woman of dust? How could he bear that Adam, whom Raphael had counseled, whom Raphael had guided, should be loved, while he, Raphael, remained an exile to his own yearning?
It was then that Raphael chose a path no prophecy had foretold, or perhaps one prophecy had revealed but he had ignored.
He came to Lilith not with fire, nor thunder, but with whisper. His voice was the music of winds, the gravity of hidden truth. He did not tempt her with promises of kingdoms, nor lure her with threats of punishment. Instead, he 'opened her eyes' .
"Do you not see, Lilith?" he said, in the shade of the fig trees. "You are more than companion, more than shadow. You are not bound to Adam. You were not made for him, but with him. Why then should he be lord, and you the lesser?"
The words stung her heart. She had not thought of it thus. She loved Adam, yet love is fragile when confronted with doubt. Raphael's words cracked the innocence of her devotion.
"Adam names the beasts, Adam tills the ground, Adam commands. And what of you? You were shaped from the same earth. Should not your voice weigh equal?"
And Lilith trembled. For deep within, she knew it to be true. She was equal. Yet love had made her yield, had made her kneel where she might have stood.
Raphael's eyes gleamed, not with malice, but with yearning. If she awakened, if she stood, if she broke free, she might ascend, and in that rising, she might be his.
That night, Lilith returned to Adam with new words. She no longer lay beneath him in silence. She no longer softened her voice. She demanded equality.
Adam was confounded. His love was real, yet his pride was older, deeper. He could not bend. He saw her fire as rebellion, not awakening.
Their quarrel echoed through Eden like thunder. She cried out that she was not clay for his feet. He roared that she was dust without his hand.
And when dawn came, Lilith fled. She spoke the Name that angels fear, and it gave her wings of flame. She crossed the rivers of Eden, vanished beyond its borders, into the wilderness where shadows hungered.
Adam wept, but pride chained him. He turned to the Eternal, who in mercy made Eve from his side, a gentler companion, one who would not question the order.
And so Lilith became forgotten, a whisper in the dark, erased from the songs of Eden.
But Raphael remembered.
What followed was darker still. Lilith, wounded in love and betrayed by the order of Heaven, fell into the arms of another: Samael, the Poison of God, the Angel of Death. He had watched her flight, had waited beyond the gate. To him she was not fragile clay, but flame kindred to his own. Together they birthed shadows, spirits of rebellion and desire.
Eden was sealed not long after. The fruit was plucked, the serpent whispered, Adam and Eve were cast forth. But the true beginning of tragedy lay in Lilith's flight, the first fracture, the first rebellion born not from pride of angels but from love betrayed and truth unveiled too soon.
And Raphael, the Archangel of Prophecy, bore the heaviest guilt. For it was he who had awakened her. He who had placed the seed of defiance in her heart. He who had wanted her to rise, but who had forgotten that mortals, when awakened, cannot bear the weight of revelation without breaking.
How could Raphael forget?
Heaven itself sought to erase it. The Seraphim wove veils over the record. The Thrones sealed the memory. Even the Eternal's own words moved swiftly to cover Adam and Eve's fall with garments of story, leaving Lilith only as rumor.
But Raphael could not escape. Each time he gazed upon prophecy, each time he heard the cries of nations, he remembered the cry of one woman, the first woman, whose fall he had wrought with a whisper.
And so, in silence, he carried shame. The angels did not speak of it. Lucifer mocked him once, before his own fall, saying:
"Brother, you planted rebellion with a kiss less word, and yet they call me the Father of Lies."
And Raphael said nothing, for truth itself was his accuser.
Thus Eden's tragedy was not a single act of disobedience but a chain of betrayals:
Raphael betraying his own calling, desiring what was forbidden.Adam betraying Lilith by denying her equality.Heaven betraying Lilith by erasing her from memory.Lilith betraying Eden by uniting with Samael in bitterness.
Each betrayal cut deeper, until Eden itself was drowned in sorrow. The gates closed. The garden withered in the minds of men, reduced to parable, its true wounds hidden.
And Raphael, the prophet, the seer, stood as witness to it all, chained not by flame nor decree, but by the unbearable weight of remembrance.
when mortals pray for visions, when prophets cry out in the night, it is Raphael who descends. His voice is steady, but within him lies the echo of a broken garden. He speaks of hope, of light, of promise, but behind his words lingers silence, the silence of Eden's first betrayal.
For prophecy is never gift alone. It is also wound. To see what has been and what shall be is to carry memory of loss. And Raphael carries Eden in his heart like a sealed scroll, waiting for the day when the Eternal Judge will unseal it, and truth will be spoken again.
Until then, Lilith remains a shadowed queen, Samael her consort, Adam and Eve the parents of exile, and Raphael the silent betrayer whose love and longing cracked the world.