Chapter 8

Kael's POV

The world has always ended in fire, once by the divine will and now by silence. I walked through what remained of a city once loved by man, it's towers were black skeletons and it's streets a graveyard of dust and bone. The air tasted of rust and regret, every echo was a ghost that refused to fade.

Each step I took left a faint trail of light across the cracked ground like dying embers, gone before the ground can burn. I had learned long ago to hide my fire, to move in the shadows away from anyone looking. I was not meant to walk among the mortals again, but the veil had shattered and the balance I had sworn to uphold had fallen with it.

And then she had awakened, the tether, known as Lilly.

I had felt her breath long before I ever saw her, a ripple across the dying world. A pulse that tore through every plane at once. It had been centuries since anything has made me feel so alive.

At first I thought it was a trick of the gods, one more cruelty to remind me of what I had lost when they cast me down. But when I found her, blood and mud covering her skin, fighting like she had been born for war I had known she wasn't just the tether. She was the thing I had once bled for.

The moment she reached out and unleashed the light, the same light that had once only answered to the gods, something deep inside of me I thought was long buried had stirred.

And I had burned again, but not with rage this time, with want. It is the cruelest kind of hunger, the kind that can never be fed.

I watched her sleep now from the space between worlds, the distance that separated the divine from the humans. The tunnel where she is shimmered faintly in my sight. Her energy was chaotic, twisting through the darkness, she was afraid. Her mind was still processing from what she didn't understand yet.

She thought I was a god, I almost laughed when I felt that thought come from her. Once perhaps I was, but now I was something far less and far more.

I had been the War God Kael of the Burning Host, sworn blade of the celestial order, breaker of demon kings, the storm that swallowed armies whole. My name had once been a prayer and curse alike, until I defied them and chose mercy over victory.

And for that they tore my flame from me and bound it into a human soul, the first tether. That was the first of many, each one born fragile, human, fleeting and each one was a new chain around my throat.

I had to watch them all die out, one after the other, as centuries passed.

Until her, Lilly was different the fire didn't just burn in her, it was her. The others had noticed her, I can feel the eyes of the old gods, long silent turning toward her like vultures with prey.

She was the balance they had forgotten they needed and the weapon they could not control. Which meant they could destroy her if they couldn't control her and I can not allow that.

If it turns out she will hate me or fear me even if she never learned who I truly was beneath the ruin and the flame, she had to live.

The night surrounded me as I knelt and pressed my hand to the cold earth, the tether's pulse beat faintly beneath my palm it was steady and defiant.

"Still fighting," I murmured, "Good."

Images appeared through the void between us of her face that was pale in the lantern light, her eyes were wide and uncertain, the tremor in her hand as she touched her chest where my name had burned it's way into her memory.

I closed my eyes, the link between us was dangerous and fragile. If I pushed on it too far the gods would feel it, but if I stayed silent too long the demons will notice. The balance was razor thin and I had already lost too much to risk losing her.

A low growl rolled through the sky like thunder that wasn't actual thunder. The celestial host was stirring, the ones who banished me, it wouldn't be long before they went after her.

So I hid in the shadows between their sight walking the ruins of this broken world like I was a ghost with a purpose, watching and guarding her but also something I shouldn't be doing, wanting her.

Every time she closed her eyes I came closer, not out of obligation but out of obsession I no longer had the strength to fight or deny it.

It wasn't love, not yet at least, love was a thing for humans bright and fragile. What I am feeling is a need that is ancient and consuming, the kind that built empires then burned them to the ground.

I reached for her through the tether link, brushing against her dreams just enough to feel the warmth of her mind and the steady beat of her heart. I desperately wanted her to know the real me and see me for who I really am.

There is no telling what fate has in store for us, but I know I won't be able to hide in the shadows much longer not without having her fall into the gods hands or something much worse. I won't be the one to let her perish and with her the worlds, so with that in mind I need to come up with a plan.

As I was pulling back from the link her light flared in response, it was wild, instinctive but mostly it was untamed. She didn't know what she was awakening yet, but when she did she would either save this world or end it for good.

And I Kael, the fallen god of war, would burn beside her.