The grey light had begun to deepen toward twilight as we emerged from the palace, the sky taking on the purple hues I had seen in my vision. The silence of the Royal Quarter felt different now—not just empty, but watchful. The black ring on my finger was a cool, constant weight, a reminder of the power I had reclaimed.
We found shelter in what had once been a guardhouse near the palace walls. The small structure was spare and functional, its stone walls still solid, its single room containing only a stone bench and the dust-covered remains of a bedroll. As full darkness fell, I realized I could still see perfectly. The deepening shadows held no mystery for me now; every crack in the stone, every swirling pattern of dust was as clear as if illuminated by torchlight.
"I can see in the dark," I said quietly, watching Croft preen his feathers on the windowsill.
He paused his grooming. "The ichor changes you. Restores what you were meant to be."
"The vision..." I began, the memory of the shadowy horse and the twilight field surfacing again. "I was riding through this field of grey flowers. The sky was this color." I gestured toward the deepening purple through the window. "And I knew—I just knew—I was an angel of death. What does that mean?"
Croft was silent for a long moment, his dark eyes unreadable. "I don't know what specific purpose you served," he said finally. "Only that you served the God of Death. Angels are... instruments. They carry out the will of their deity. Your purpose would have been tied to his domain."
"The end of things," I murmured, the words feeling both foreign and familiar on my tongue.
"Or their transformation," Croft countered. "Death is not always an ending. Sometimes it's a change of state. A transition."
As he spoke, I noticed something new—a faint, silver glow around Croft himself. It was subtle, like moonlight on water, but unmistakable. It outlined his form and seemed to pulse with a slow, steady rhythm.
"I can see... something around you," I said, squinting. "A kind of light."
Croft stilled completely. "Describe it."
"Silver. Faint, but there. It moves with you."
"A soul-glow," he said, his voice hushed. "That is no small ability. If you can see that..."
I looked down at my own hands, turning them over. They showed no such glow, only the pale skin and the dark ring on my finger. But when I focused, I could feel something within me—a cold, steady light that I knew would be visible to anyone with the right sight.
Curious, I stepped into the deeper shadows in the corner of the room. As the darkness enveloped me, something remarkable happened—I felt myself becoming insubstantial, merging with the shadows themselves. I raised my hand and watched as it seemed to dissolve into the darkness, becoming little more than a slightly denser patch of shadow.
"I can... fade into darkness," I said, my voice sounding strange to my own ears—muffled, as if coming from underwater.
I stepped back into the dim light near the window, feeling solidity return to my form. Croft watched me, his head tilted.
"The shadows welcome you," he observed. "That will be useful."
As the night deepened, I became aware of another change. The connection between Croft and myself—previously just a sense of companionship and shared purpose—had grown stronger, more tangible. I could feel his presence now like a steady warmth in the back of my mind, a constant awareness that needed no words.
"You feel closer," I said, putting the strange sensation into words.
Croft ruffled his feathers. "The bond strengthens as you reclaim your power. I am your guide. Our fates are intertwined."
I turned my attention inward, to the compass that had been my constant guide since awakening. For days, it had been a general pull toward the city's heart. But now, as I focused on it, the sensation had shifted, becoming more specific. It no longer pulled me deeper into the city, but eastward, toward the distant walls and whatever lay beyond them.
"The pull has changed," I told Croft. "It's pointing east now. Out of the city."
Croft hopped down from the windowsill and landed on the stone bench beside me. "The first piece has been found. The compass seeks the next. East... toward the mountains, if I remember the city's layout correctly. Toward harsher lands."
I looked out the window, toward the eastern sky that was now fully dark. My enhanced vision could pick out the distant shape of mountains on the horizon, their peaks just visible above the city walls. Somewhere out there was another piece of what I had been—another fragment of the power I needed to reclaim.
"The king in the throne room," I said after a long silence. "The hole in his chest... it was clean. Precise. Not violent."
"An execution, perhaps," Croft suggested. "Or a sacrifice. Or something else entirely. The Aethelians had their own understanding of power. Their own reasons for doing things."
I thought of the black ring on my finger, of how it had responded to my will, shifting form as easily as water changing shape. A Soul Weapon, though neither of us knew what that truly meant. Only that it was tied to me now, and to the power growing within me.
As night settled fully over the dead city, I tested my new abilities again—stepping into shadows and feeling myself dissolve, watching the silver glow of Croft's soul, seeing clearly in the darkness that would have left any normal man blind. Each ability felt like remembering something I had known long ago, like muscles that had gone unused but not forgotten.
The compass in my chest pulled steadily eastward, a new promise of discovery. But for tonight, we would rest. The dead city held no threats that my new sight could detect—only the silent stones and the ghosts of what had been.
Croft settled on the bench beside me, his presence a warm constant in my mind. The bond between us hummed with unspoken understanding. We were two lost pieces of a broken world, and we had taken the first step toward becoming something more.
Tomorrow, we would follow the compass east, out of this city of stone and memory, toward whatever new truths awaited in the mountains beyond. But for now, in the quiet dark, I practiced being what I was becoming—an angel learning to wear his wings again.