The world was quiet after the storm.
Too quiet.
The air still shimmered faintly with gold, the echo of power that had almost erased everything. The Council's wards had collapsed across half the capital, but for now, there was silence the kind that comes after something that shouldn't have survived.
Aster stood by the window, his uniform torn and burned, his blade still faintly glowing.
He hadn't spoken in hours.
When I finally did, my voice was a whisper. "You knew him."
He didn't look at me. "Who?"
"The one from my dreams. The first vessel. You called me by another name when we were fighting before the blast. You said Cael."
The name tasted ancient.
Aster turned slowly, eyes shadowed. "You heard that?"
I nodded.
For a moment, he said nothing. Then, quietly:
"I didn't just know him, Erian. I served him."
The air left my lungs. "You what?"
He stepped closer, his voice low. "A thousand years ago, before the Council rewrote history, there was no Academy, no order of light. Only the Celestials divine beings who walked among mortals. I was one of their sentinels. A mortal chosen to protect a god who refused to stay in heaven."
"Cael."
"Yes. The Black Sun. The god who loved too much, and burned the world for it."
I swallowed hard. "Loved?"
Aster's gaze dropped. "He broke the laws of creation to save a mortal he wasn't supposed to touch. He traded his divinity to keep that mortal alive. The world called it heresy. The Council called it the Fall."
My heartbeat stuttered. "And the mortal?"
His hand trembled. "He was reborn. Again and again. Every lifetime carrying a piece of Cael's power. Until you."
The silence that followed was unbearable.
I whispered, "You're saying I'm"
"The reincarnation of the god I failed to protect." His eyes met mine blue and burning. "And I am the soul who swore to guard him. Even after death."
I stepped back. "No. That's impossible."
"Then how do I remember your voice before you were born?" His tone cracked, raw. "How do I know the sound of your power like I know my own heartbeat?"
The mark on my chest pulsed once gold light rippling through the room.
And in that light, I saw flashes again.
Aster kneeling before me not as a soldier, but as a man who had loved a god.
My hand cupping his face.
My voice whispering the same words I'd told him in another lifetime:
"If I fall, find me again."
The vision faded. My breath shook. "You remember everything."
He laughed softly, brokenly. "Not everything. Just enough to make it hurt."
I reached for him. "Aster"
But he stepped back. "Don't. Please. Every time I find you, I lose you. You die, and I'm left to remember what eternity feels like without you."
Tears blurred my vision. "Then stop trying to protect me."
He looked at me and for once, the soldier was gone.
Only the man remained.
"I can't," he said. "Because loving you is the only sin I still believe in."
The mark between us flared again brighter than before as if the universe itself couldn't bear to stay silent.
And for one heartbeat, I felt what he felt.
Every lifetime.
Every loss.
Every promise that never faded.
When the light dimmed, Aster was still there close enough that I could feel his breath.
"Now you know," he whispered. "That's my secret."
Outside, thunder rolled.
The golden cracks across the sky deepened as if the heavens themselves were listening.
That night, neither of us spoke again.
But when I finally slept, his voice followed me into the dream.
"If I fall, find me again."
And somewhere in the distance, the Black Sun rose once more.