Marcus Magnus was twenty-two when he met the creature that changed the entire future of magic.
It was during the Night of Splintered Stars, a phenomenon known for tearing temporary rifts between realms. Most of these rifts produced nothing more than stray mana storms or corrupted beasts.
But that night…
Something stepped through.
A woman with silver hair like threads of moonlight, eyes like bruised starlight, and wings, blackened, broken, cracking at the edges like charred paper. The air around her rippled with forbidden divinity.
A Fallen Angel.
Agatha.
Marcus had seen horrors in his childhood. He knew cruelty. He knew despair. But he had never seen beauty like hers, beauty wrapped in sorrow, power wrapped in chains. She collapsed before him, wings dragging, feathers falling like dying embers.
Most mages would have killed her on sight.
Marcus didn't. Something in her eyes, something ancient, wounded, furious, called to him. He approached, slow and calculating.
