The girl Appolyth had watched did not bring forth just one child. She bore three.
Each birth deepened the wound inside Appolyth, each cry of mortal life stoking the fire of her envy.
Her reports grew shorter. Then careless. Then absent. The gods noticed, though they did not speak. They always noticed.
But silence was not forgiveness. Silence was judgment waiting to be pronounced.
Her absences lengthened. The realm of the Seraph saw less and less of her. Her place among them grew hollow, her name whispered as a shadow.
And then, one day, she did not return at all.
Lost to the world of mortals.
Hunted by her own longing.
Her thoughts, once pristine, turned jagged. Her desire, once hidden, festered into something twisted.
And in that silence, the first crack in her divinity spread.
Her descent had deepened