The wind was sharp when Eirran spread his wings and left the ship.
Far below, the port of Win'Tarra sprawled like a chaotic web of docks, warehouses, and squalid quarters where humans scurried like insects in the shadows of the towers. Smoke rose from a hundred chimneys, mingling with salt and the stench of stale fish. He opened his wings wider, feeling the current rush through the feathers as he climbed higher -above the reeking alleys, above the mask Win'Tarra showed the world.
Noemi had never seen this.
The thought cut him. Born in the villages of the far north, among forests and mines, she had died without ever glimpsing the splendor and misery of this city. Would she have hated it, had she seen it? Or, perhaps loved it, just a little?
The air grew warmer as he ascended toward the city's central spine, where terraces spiraled upward to the Eight Towers. The Fifth Tower, seat of his bloodline, rose cold and white, its peak piercing the clouds.
He landed on the highest terrace. They were waiting.
Gioden stood motionless, clad in a dark-grey uniform marked with the sigil of the Fifth House. His wings, a shade darker than Eirran's, barely noticeable side by side, remained folded but ready. His face betrayed nothing: neither welcome nor rejection. Only patience.
"Gioden," said Eirran.
"Eirran." A nod. No embrace. No reproach. Exactly as expected.
"Father awaits you," Gioden added, turning toward the entrance.
Eirran followed. Eight years have passed since he had last walked these halls, and the scent of stone and old power still clung to the walls of the Fifth Tower. It reminded him of childhood. And betrayal.
The great hall opened before them. Upon a throne of polished black stone sat Fariah V'Asanii. As always, she held the form of a statue, yet her eyes were cold, watchful and alive. Her wings were immaculate and storm-grey; her white hair bound in a severe, painful-looking knot.
"Son," she said, her voice clear and cold. "You have returned."
Eirran folded his wings. "Mother."
"Eight years," she continued, "and you return only now, when death summons you." She did not wait for an answer. Rising, her tall shadow spilled across the floor. "Perhaps it is better so. Perhaps it is a chance to begin anew. You belong to Win'Tarra, to the Fifth House by blood, regardless of your... mistakes."
Mistakes.
Noemi.
The child he had never seen.
Waves that devoured them.
His jaw tightened. He said nothing.
"Your father waits," she finished, softer now. "He wishes to speak to you."
Gioden gestured, and they moved on. Eirran could feel his mother's gaze burning into his back until the doors closed behind them.
The corridor echoed with their steps.
"He hopes you've changed," Gioden said quietly.
"And you?"
A pause. "I hope for nothing. I only know that what Father says will change everything."
They walked toward the chambers where Rhais V'Asanii, patriarch of the Fifth House, awaited his youngest son.
The chamber of death was silent.
Light poured through the high windows in silver threads. Rhais lay upon a hanging bed of blackwood; his wings spread, sagging like weathered sails that had once been white as new snow. Each feather a story, now frayed, ashen. His face, once flawless, was yellowed with fatigue. His eyes, though, still burned with their old flame.
Eirran halted at the threshold; his wings lifted slightly. The scent of herbs and old stone pulled memories of childhood.
"Enter." Rhais's voice rasped, but commanded.
Eirran stepped closer.
"Close the door."
The thud of oak echoed down the hall.
Rhais tried to raise his hand, failed, angered by his weakness. He pointed to a chair of blackwood inlaid with silver flame-arrows. "Sit."
He wanted to shout, to shake him by the shoulders, to demand: Why Selavetia? Why Noemi? Why the child? Instead, he sat-Antarrilan discipline chaining him in silence.
"Do you know why I called you?" The old voice still carried the weight that once moved armies.
Eirran remained silent.
"Death," Rhais said after a moment, watching moonlight fracture on stone, "comes strangely to our kind. Mirrors lie; time does not." His gaze returned to his son. "And when it comes, it forces you to face what you have done -and what you have not."
Eirran's grip whitened on the edge of the chair. "Why am I here?"
"Because I cannot step into Ellevath's light until I settle my sins."
His blood thundered in his temples.
"There is something I kept from you."
Eirran rose sharply; the chair screeched.
"Before I tell you," Rhais pressed on, "know this: you do not carry only my sins here. You carry your own."
"What does that mean?"
Rhais closed his eyes, as if carefully extracting memories. "I was proud of you. As a boy, you were a wonder. Second Son of the Fifth House, yet first in all else. As a child you flew like a grown Ilari. As a youth you bested Gioden's master-at-arms. At the verge of adulthood you joined the Antarrila. And only a few years later you became a Seraph; the youngest in centuries."
He paused, then softer: "Your tactics changed our wars. The defense of Tal'Hessia, where you led three thousand ours against fifteen thousand barbarians from the east. You saved a city."
"I killed men," Eirran murmured.
"You killed enemies," Rhais shot back. "And I knew you could not bear slaughter. I knew you sought mercy. That is why you left."
Eirran stared, stunned he had known his inner workings of a soul.
"Then I sent you to Selavetia," Rhais continued. "I thought it was only a minor unrest. I did not know you would find her there."
Noemi.
Her name fell between them like a stone.
"Why tell me this now?"
"Because I want you to know you were not only my sin," Rhais said, almost gently. "You were also my pride."
"I returned as a common Angel," Eirran whispered.
"And you rose again to the rank of Archangel, faster than any before you. And again, you defied command."
"The village was innocent."
"I know," said Rhais. "And that is why I saved you."
"Saved?" The bitter laugh rang out. "You exiled me to rot in Astochia."
"I gave you peace, as much as I could." Weariness weighed his words. "And now I ask your forgiveness."
Silence.
"In the official records," he said at last, "in Selavetia's archives, from eight years ago... you will find answers."
"Why not tell me now?"
"I cannot," he whispered. "Not while I live."
Eirran grasped his cold, frail hand.
"Swear," Rhais said, eyes sharp. "Swear you will open the records only after my death."
"Why should I swear?"
"Because I am your father." The old iron will in those quiet words.
For a long moment Eirran studied the face age could not break, though centuries spoke through it. The rage inside him congealed into something heavier.
"I swear," he said at last.
Rhais nodded, closed his eyes. "Thank you."
"Is that all?"
The patriarch's breathing grew shallow.
Eirran turned toward the door.
"Eirran."
He stopped, without looking back.
"Forgive me."
His nails dug into his palms. He gave no answer. He left...Abandoning his father to his sins.
And his secret.
His wings tore through the air of the atrium.
There was no grace in the turns - only urgency; his muscles burned. The atrium rose like a vast hollow spine wrapped in spiraling galleries. No rails, no protections: only the abyss between flight and fall. Along the wall, narrow steps clung upward; a human servant, pale and small, pressed himself to the stone as Eirran swept past above.
How had Noemi viewed these cities? The thought struck like a whip. Did she find the Ilari palaces beautiful?
He had never asked her.
The archives lay deep within the stone, hidden behind heavy tapestries. Massive blackwood doors bore the sigil of their House: two crossed flaming arrows. Above them, curving in elegant letters stood their motto: through fire, unbroken.
He shoved the doors wide. The air reeked of dust and old parchment.
Shelves stretched in dim rows. His wing brushed a corner; dust danced in beams of light.
Selavetia. The year of death.
His fingers did not tremble as he searched. Nor when he found the scroll - heavy, sealed in red wax with the crest of the Fifth House. Only when he lifted it did his nails pierce his palm.
Open it.
Learn.
"Not while I live."
Rhais's voice echoed, not in the room, not quite in his mind, hovering behind him.
Why wait?
A memory rose unbidden: Noemi on the terrace of his Selavetian chambers. Eyes green as the Astochian sea in summer, a color the Ilari never bred. Her warm, defiant, fragile smile. Hands reaching toward his wings, never touching.
She had died after the birth, alone. They had thrown her body to the sea while he remained in Win'Tarra -signing accords, making promises, pretending to be loyal. That was the bargain Rhais offered: her life in exchange for obedience.
It bought time. Not mercy.
He had never held her hand in death. Never buried her body.
He thought he had buried everything else.
He was wrong.
His throat tightened.
One cut and he would know.
A vow was a vow.
He drew his hands away from the scroll. He did not return it to the shelf; he pressed it to his chest and took flight.
His chambers lay untouched: swords on the wall, notebooks of tactics, the broken iliath vest from the night he had learned of Noemi's death. He set the scroll upon the black-oak table and sat. The wax caught the sun, the House sigil gleaming like blood.
What did you hide, Father? Why must I wait?
His hand brushed a letter-knife, a Noemi's gift. Ivory hilt, Selavetian steel blade, a lily etched in the guard.
I could open it now.
The knife flashed. Instead, he drove it into the table to the hilt. The scroll remained untouched.
Not while you live.
Rhais had little time left.
Too little. Too much. He could not think of it now.
He remembered Noemi's words: "Truth is a bitter tonic; lies are sweet poison." He waited, watching the sun sink beyond Win'Tarra's towers. Each second slid past like grains of sand.
Crystals chimed above, scattering candlelight into a thousand fragments. Every clink of glass echoed through the silence of the hall.
Eirran sat at the long ebony table, staring into the ruby in his cup. Across from him, Fariah ate with precise, measured bites. Her wings immaculate, slightly spread. Gioden sat to her right; Alina further down.
"The peasants on the eastern borders rise again," Fariah said evenly. "Over the grain tax.
Alina lifted her gaze, unflinching. "We should reconsider the levy. Stores are low, winter is approaching. Take too much, and fields and mouths alike will be left empty."
Fariah gave a short nod, rare, but significant approval.
Gioden turned his cup between his fingers. "I already see it - we'll be asked to send soldiers. But God's warriors are beyond such errands."
God's warriors.
Eirran's hand tightened around his fork.
Antarrila.
Ice surged from memory: a border village, smoke, kneeling women, children clinging behind them. The order clear: descend. He had refused. Whips. The threat of broken wings. Fear...and Rhais, standing between him and condemnation.
"Eirran?" Fariah's voice recalled him.
"What do you think?" All eyes fixed on him.
He set down the fork. "If asked, send regular troops. Antarrila has greater duties."
Gioden remained silent, his eyes unreadable.
A servant entered with the next dish. Eirran's stomach was knotted.
Open the scroll.
Find out.
Rhais's face: tired, weary, pained.
Not while I live.
He loved his father. He hated him. He wished him dead. He wished for him to live.
The war within had no end.
"Rhais looked better today," Fariah said, almost gently.
"Yes," Eirran replied. "Better." The lie slipped easily.
Fariah nodded, her gaze drifting -toward the Temple, perhaps, or the past. "I believe he will recover."
Eirran and Gioden stayed silent. They knew the truth.
Candles flickered, shadows stretching along the walls like wings trying to enclose them all. Eirran watched the light fracture in the crystal -into a thousand shards.
Like his life.
Like his family.
In the pocket of his robe, pressed to his palm, the scroll waited.
It was only parchment. Ink and wax.
But what lay within could unravel bloodlines, reshape loyalties, and bring to light the one secret Win'Tarra was never meant to survive.