The moon hung low above Elaris that night, swollen and silver, casting its light over marble paths and rosebushes heavy with dew. The palace was asleep — or at least pretending to be — its corridors silent except for the rustle of night wind through silk curtains.
But Queen Lyra could not sleep.
Dreams had haunted her for nights now: wings of fire, a voice that spoke her name in languages no human tongue should know, and eyes that glowed like the moonlight itself. Each time she awoke, her heart beat as though she'd run from the edge of eternity.
She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and stepped out onto the terrace. Below, the palace gardens stretched in endless symmetry — hedges trimmed like geometry, lilies nodding softly in the pools. Once, these gardens had been her refuge. Now, they whispered secrets she could not name.
Her slippers made no sound as she descended the marble steps. The air was cool and fragrant with jasmine. Somewhere, a fountain sang a quiet, broken melody — the kind that made her chest ache without reason.
She didn't know why she wandered there. Only that she felt called.
At the far end of the garden, near the old fountain of the goddess Elaris, stood a figure. At first she thought him one of the gardeners — someone who had fallen asleep on duty, perhaps. But as she drew nearer, she saw the soft light of the moon catch on his face.
It was him.
The wanderer. The man they called Aris.
He was kneeling, his hand resting on a fallen rose branch. His expression was unreadable — distant, as though he were listening to something far beyond the night itself. The white petals at his feet glowed faintly, like small moons scattered in the grass.
Lyra hesitated. Her first instinct was caution. Her guards had reported this man's quiet service among the healers, his kindness, his silence. But there was something in him that unsettled her — not in fear, but in recognition.
"Aris," she said softly.
He turned.
The world stilled.
For a heartbeat, everything — the wind, the fountain, even the moon — seemed to hold its breath. His eyes met hers, and she felt something within her shift, as if an invisible thread had tightened between them.
He rose to his feet slowly. "Your Majesty," he said, his voice a low murmur that seemed to know her name long before he spoke it.
Lyra's fingers brushed the cold rim of the fountain. "You shouldn't be here this late."
"Nor should you," he said gently. "The gardens are full of ghosts tonight."
She smiled faintly, though her pulse raced. "And which kind are you?"
He held her gaze for a moment too long. "The kind that remembers being alive."
His words sank deep into her — not because they made sense, but because they felt true.
Lyra stepped closer. The scent of roses mingled with something subtler — a warmth, like the air after rain. "You speak strangely for a wanderer."
"And you walk among your flowers as if you were searching for something lost," he replied.
Lyra's breath caught. "Perhaps I am."
The night wrapped around them, dense and hushed. Fireflies drifted through the air, their glow soft as starlight. Somewhere, a nightbird called — a long, mournful note that sounded like a prayer.
Azrael — Aris — looked at her, and for the first time since he'd fallen from Heaven, he felt something like peace. There was no fire, no command, no voice of Heaven whispering in his mind. Only the quiet hum of the garden, and the woman standing before him — mortal, fragile, infinite.
"You've been helping the sick," Lyra said after a while. "The healers speak of a man who works without sleep, without asking for coin."
"I do what I can," he answered. "It is… easier to help others than to think of myself."
Lyra studied him. "And what do you think of, when you do?"
Azrael hesitated. He wanted to say of you.
But he said, "Of mercy. And what it costs."
She looked away, toward the moon reflected in the fountain. "Everything worth having costs something. Sometimes everything."
He saw the sadness in her profile — the faint tremor in her hand as she brushed a leaf from the water's surface. She was tired, though she hid it behind poise and calm. Tired of death, of prophecy, of being the queen who carried the weight of fear.
He wanted to tell her that she wasn't alone. That Heaven itself trembled because of her kindness. But he couldn't.
So instead, he reached down and picked up one of the fallen roses. Its stem was broken, its petals bruised, yet it still held its scent. He offered it to her.
Lyra stared at it for a moment before taking it gently from his hand. Their fingers brushed. The contact was brief — less than a breath — yet something passed between them, something wordless and immense.
Her pulse quickened. "You should be careful," she whispered. "The court whispers that angels walk among men."
He smiled faintly. "Then perhaps they should be careful too."
For a long moment, neither spoke. The world felt impossibly still, suspended between one breath and the next. Lyra looked into his eyes, and the dream came back — the wings of fire, the voice that said her name, the warmth that felt like both danger and salvation.
When she finally spoke, her voice was barely a whisper. "I've seen you before."
Azrael's heart froze. "In the city?"
"In my dreams," she said. "And now I can't tell if I'm still dreaming."
His throat tightened. He wanted to step back, to break the moment, but her eyes held him fast. "Perhaps we both are," he murmured.
The air trembled between them — not with magic, not yet, but with something older, purer. Recognition. Fate.
Then, from the palace balcony above, a voice called her name. One of her ladies-in-waiting. The spell broke.
Lyra straightened, hiding her trembling hands in the folds of her gown. "I should go."
Azrael bowed slightly. "Goodnight, My Queen."
Her eyes lingered on him for one last, uncertain moment. "Goodnight… Aris."
When she turned to leave, the rose slipped from her fingers and fell into the fountain. The water carried it gently away, spinning it in slow circles — a single bloom adrift beneath the moonlight.
Azrael watched her disappear into the palace shadows, and when she was gone, he let out the breath he'd been holding. His pulse still thundered, though he no longer had the heart of an angel.
He looked at the rose floating on the water and whispered a single word — one only Heaven would understand.
"Mine."
The night refused to end.
Long after Lyra returned to her chamber, her pulse still carried the rhythm of that moment — his eyes, his voice, the strange gravity that pulled her toward him as if the universe itself had leaned closer.
She tried to sleep.
She couldn't.
The silk sheets felt cold, the air heavy. Somewhere in the distance, thunder murmured. The rain had not yet fallen, but the scent of it touched the air — alive, electric.
She rose, still barefoot, and walked to the window. Below, the garden shimmered faintly under the moonlight, the same place where she'd met him only an hour ago.
Aris.
That name echoed like a secret in her chest.
She shouldn't think of him. He was a wanderer, a healer — one who appeared from nowhere and worked miracles no mortal could explain. The High Priest had warned her once: Beware those who heal without asking for prayer.
And yet, something in her heart whispered that she had met him before time itself began.
A knock came — soft, hesitant.
She turned.
Her maid, Sera, entered with a bowed head. "Forgive me, Your Majesty. A man asked that this be delivered to you."
Lyra frowned. "At this hour?"
"Yes, Majesty." Sera held out a small parcel wrapped in linen. "He left no name. Only this."
Lyra dismissed her gently and unwrapped the cloth. Inside was a single rose — white as frost — and a sliver of silver shaped like a crescent wing.
Her heart stilled.
She'd seen that symbol before. In her dreams.
On the being who called her by name in a voice that burned like the stars.
She turned the piece over in her palm, and for a heartbeat, her vision blurred — the room flickered, and she stood not in her chamber, but in a storm of light. Wings, endless and radiant, filled the sky. A figure stood before her — tall, cloaked in flame and sorrow. His eyes, luminous as the moon, looked down upon her.
"Do you remember me?" the voice said.
Then it was gone.
The world snapped back, and Lyra stumbled against her bedpost, her chest heaving.
"Who are you, Aris?" she whispered into the quiet.
---
In the garden below, Azrael stood once more before the fountain. The water glowed faintly where her rose had fallen — as though the pool itself remembered her touch.
He shouldn't have come back.
He told himself that as he walked beneath the cypress trees, the moonlight silvering his hair. Every step toward the palace was a sin. Every thought of her, a betrayal. Yet his feet carried him forward, drawn by something stronger than Heaven's decree.
He stopped where she had stood.
Her voice still lingered in the air. You speak strangely for a wanderer.
And he had wanted to answer, Because I am not one.
He reached for the fountain again. The water shimmered at his fingertips, reflecting the broken image of his face. For the first time in centuries, Azrael did not recognize himself.
He had walked among mortals before — in wars, in miracles, in death — but never like this. Never as a man whose heart beat in rhythm with another's.
He looked up at the moon. "You watch everything," he murmured. "Tell me… how do I stop this?"
The night gave no answer.
Then, as though summoned by his unspoken longing, a soft sound came — the faint rustle of footsteps.
He turned.
Lyra stood at the edge of the path, wrapped in her shawl, hair loose over her shoulders. She shouldn't have been awake. She shouldn't have been there at all.
And yet she was — drawn, just as he had been.
"I knew I'd find you here," she said quietly.
Azrael's breath caught. "You shouldn't have."
"Neither should you," she countered. "And yet here we are."
They stared at each other across the moonlit path — two figures carved from the same silence.
"What are you?" she asked suddenly. The question trembled on her lips, fragile but fearless. "You heal wounds no man can heal. You look at the stars as if they whisper your name. Who are you really, Aris?"
He said nothing.
Because if he told her — if he spoke the truth — the world would burn.
"I am…" He swallowed. "Someone who's forgotten what he used to be."
Lyra took a step closer. "Then let me help you remember."
The words struck him like a bell — pure, impossible.
Her eyes searched his face, and for a moment he saw something reflected there — not fear, not awe, but recognition. As if she saw through the human shell, straight to the divine ruin beneath.
He turned his face away. "If you knew what I was, you would not stand so close."
"Then show me," she whispered.
The air trembled.
For a heartbeat, his hidden power stirred — faint, but undeniable. The wind shifted, the roses bent toward him, and faint light traced his outline like a halo made of sorrow. His eyes — briefly, impossibly — glowed with silver fire.
Lyra gasped softly, but did not step back. "You…"
He closed his eyes, forcing the power back into stillness. "You weren't meant to see that."
"Then why show me at all?" she asked, voice trembling.
"Because I couldn't help it," he said, and the truth in his tone was raw. "You make me forget what I am supposed to hide."
For a moment, neither breathed. Then Lyra reached out — slowly, uncertainly — and touched his hand.
Warmth surged through them both, too alive to be mortal.
"Then don't hide," she whispered. "Not from me."
Azrael looked at her, and the world fell away — the rules, the heavens, the centuries. Only her remained. Her breath. Her eyes. The rhythm of her heart calling to his.
He lifted her hand to his lips, not in reverence, but surrender. "You don't know what you ask for," he murmured.
Lyra smiled faintly. "Then let me find out."
The first drop of rain fell between them, splashing onto the rose petals below. Then another. The storm had finally come.
Azrael looked at the sky and knew this was the moment Heaven would begin to watch again. But he didn't move.
He stayed — under the rain, under the weight of eternity — with the woman who had already begun to unmake him.