The storm had passed.
Silence stretched across the battlefield like a suffocating veil.
The sky, once torn apart by light and screams, now hung quiet, painted in hues of fading gold and ash-gray clouds.
The wind was still thick with iron and smoke, carrying the scent of burnt feathers and blood.
All around Aestrea, the ground was buried beneath a graveyard of white.
Wings... thousands of them.
Torn, broken, bloodied.
Some were still twitching faintly, nerves spasming even though their owners were nothing but scattered flesh.
Blades of holy light flickered weakly, like dying embers in a sea of blood.
The once divine army of heaven was reduced to a carpet of corpses and feathers, piled high around a single figure who still stood at the center.
Aestrea.
His chest rose and fell in ragged, uneven bursts.
Each breath rattled out of him like it might be his last.
His silver aura, once burning bright enough to erase heaven's light, now sputtered and cracked around him.
