The Shattered Citadel ( within the broken crystal palace )
The ruins of Heaven stretched beyond sight.
What had once been a sanctuary of gold and hymns now lay as a field of corpses and crystalline dust. The air shimmered with fading divinity, a mirage of holiness that refused to die even as its keepers burned.
Atlas walked between Gabriel and Raphael. Neither spoke. Their wings dragged faint trails of light across the ground—remnants of what they once were.
They had been searching for hours—or maybe days. Time here didn't behave. It folded in on itself, light bending like memory. The Citadel loomed ahead, its spire cracked but still rising into clouds that bled silver.
"The First Citadel," Gabriel whispered, almost reverently. "Where oaths were sworn. Where the Almighty forged us from His breath."
Raphael snorted softly. "And where He abandoned us just as quickly."
