AZRAEL

Branded by Fire

Azrael slammed the apartment door behind him, sliding the chain lock with trembling fingers. The sound echoed in the cramped studio like a gunshot, making him flinch. Every shadow seemed to writhe with potential threat, every creak of the old building's bones suggested something climbing toward his window.

He pressed his back against the door, chest heaving. The memory of that cloaked figure's words echoed in his mind: So... the Forsaken Flame lives. What did that mean? What was he supposed to be forsaken from?

His hands shook as he reached for the light switch. When the fluorescent bulb flickered to life, casting its familiar sickly glow across his belongings, he almost sobbed with relief. Normal. Everything looked normal. The unmade bed, the stack of law textbooks, the coffee mug still sitting where he'd left it hours ago.

But when he looked down at his hands, normalcy shattered.

Thin lines of fire ran beneath his skin like veins of molten gold. They pulsed with his heartbeat, branching from his palms up along his forearms, disappearing beneath his sleeves. As he watched in horrified fascination, the network spread—a delicate tracery of flame that mapped his circulatory system in light.

"No, no, no." He stumbled to the bathroom, flipping on every light. The mirror reflected his pale face, dark hair matted with sweat, but it was his eyes that made him step back. They burned. Not literally, but with an inner fire that transformed their usual gray into something molten and inhuman.

Azrael tore off his shirt. The flame-cracks covered his torso now, following the paths of major blood vessels. They were beautiful in a terrifying way, like living tattoos etched in starfire. When he turned, he could see them spreading across his shoulder blades where phantom wings had erupted just an hour ago.

He splashed cold water on his face, trying to think. The creature had called him a seraph, said something about exile and a Demon King. The dreams that had haunted him for months suddenly felt less like nightmares and more like suppressed memories clawing their way to the surface.

The exhaustion hit him all at once. Whatever power had flooded through him during the fight, it had burned through his reserves like acid through metal. He stumbled back to his bed, not bothering to put his shirt back on. The flame-cracks were warm against the cool air, a constant reminder of what he'd become.

Sleep claimed him before his head hit the pillow.

The dream began immediately, more vivid than ever before.

He stood in a vast hall of white stone, its ceiling lost in radiance that didn't seem to come from any visible source. Pillars stretched in perfect rows as far as the eye could see, each one carved with symbols that hurt to look at directly. The air itself sang with harmonies that made his bones vibrate in resonance.

But he wasn't alone.

Figures moved through the hall—tall, luminous beings with wings that caught and scattered light like prisms. Their faces were beautiful beyond mortal comprehension, but cold, distant as winter stars. They wore armor that seemed forged from concentrated sunlight, and when they spoke, their voices carried the weight of absolute authority.

One approached him, and Azrael's dream-self recoiled. He knew this being, though the name felt like swallowing broken glass. Kelean. His rival. His former brother-in-arms. The one who had led the purge.

"Still clinging to flesh, I see." Kelean's voice was clear as crystal, sharp as winter wind. "How far the mighty have fallen."

Dream-Azrael tried to speak, but found his voice had been stripped away. He was merely an observer now, watching a conversation from eons past unfold like a play performed by ghosts.

"The Goddess grows tired of your defiance," Kelean continued, circling like a predator. "Submit now, and your punishment may yet be... merciful."

The scene shifted, flowing like water. Now he stood before a throne of impossible radiance, so bright it should have burned his eyes from their sockets. But in dreams, mortal limitations didn't apply. He could see the figure seated upon it—beautiful beyond description, terrible beyond imagining.

The Goddess of Light. His creator. His destroyer.

She was both everything he remembered and nothing like the fragmented images that had haunted his sleep. Her hair flowed like liquid starlight, her skin glowed with the soft radiance of dawn, and her eyes... her eyes held the cold judgment of absolute authority. She wore robes that seemed woven from the aurora itself, and a crown of crystalline fire that bent reality around its edges.

When she spoke, her voice was music and thunder combined.

"My wayward son returns to me at last." The words carried no warmth, only the satisfaction of a hunter cornering wounded prey. "Did you think mortal flesh would hide you forever?"

Dream-Azrael found his voice. "I never asked to be your weapon."

Her smile was winter dawn—beautiful and merciless. "What you asked is irrelevant. You are mine. You were forged in the fires of my will, tempered by my purpose. That you chose rebellion does not diminish my claim."

"I chose freedom."

"You chose chaos." The Goddess rose from her throne, and her presence filled the hall like flood water. "Look where it has led you. Exiled. Broken. Reduced to cowering among the mortals you once shepherded."

The scene fractured, showing him glimpses of what he'd lost. Leading hosts of seraphs across skies of burning gold. Standing as her right hand, feared and revered across creation. The weight of absolute purpose, the clarity of divine mission.

And then the fall. Chains of light binding his wings. The sensation of divine fire consuming his essence, stripping away rank and recognition until only raw will remained. The long plunge through screaming void, cast down like a stone thrown into an abyss.

"But I am merciful," the Goddess whispered, her voice following him through the cascade of memories. "Renounce your rebellion. Kneel before my throne once more. Accept the chains I offer, and your exile ends."

"Never." The word tore from his throat like a battle cry.

Her expression didn't change, but the temperature in the hall dropped until his breath misted in the suddenly frigid air. Ice began forming on the edges of her throne, spreading outward in delicate fractal patterns.

"Then you will burn, my faithless son. Not in the cleansing fires of redemption, but in the consuming flames of annihilation. I will hunt you across every realm, through every incarnation, until nothing remains but ashes and regret."

The dream began to dissolve, reality bleeding back in at the edges. But her voice followed him into wakefulness, soft as silk and sharp as executioner's steel:

"You should never have returned."