AZRAEL

Shattered Memories

The black fire sputtered and died around Azrael's hands like a candle in the wind. The effort of shattering Sariel's blade had drained him more than he'd expected, leaving his limbs heavy and his vision swimming. Whatever power had awakened inside him, he clearly didn't know how to control it.

Sariel stared at the broken hilt in her grip, then let it fall to the floor with a crystalline chime. When she looked up, her perfect features were twisted with something between rage and disgust.

"Pathetic. Even with your fire unbound, you fight like a mortal." She gestured, and another blade materialized in her hand—this one longer, its radiant edge humming with barely contained energy. "The Azrael I knew would have reduced me to ash by now."

"Maybe I'm not him anymore." But even as he said it, Azrael could feel fragments of that other self stirring in the depths of his mind. Muscle memory that belonged to someone who had wielded power like a scalpel, who had commanded respect through strength alone.

"You are exactly him." Sariel advanced again, her new blade leaving trails of light in the air. "Arrogant. Self-righteous. Too proud to accept your place in the natural order."

She struck with fluid precision, the sword carving through the space where his head had been. Azrael stumbled backward, his movements clumsy compared to her lethal grace. The black fire flickered weakly around his fingers, barely enough to deflect her follow-up thrust.

"Fight me!" Her composure cracked further, revealing the fury beneath. "Stop cowering like some mewling human!"

The blade swept horizontally, forcing him to duck. His foot caught on a desk leg, and he went down hard, the impact jarring his spine. Sariel loomed over him, weapon raised for the killing blow.

Desperation flooded his system, and with it came power. The black fire roared back to life, but this time it brought something else with it—a cascade of images that hit his mind like a sledgehammer.

He stood on a crystalline balcony overlooking fields of silver cloud. His armor was gold and white, each piece inscribed with runes of binding and command. Behind him, ranks of seraphs stretched to the horizon—warriors of light awaiting his word. When he spoke, his voice carried the authority of heaven itself.

"The Goddess asks too much," he told his assembled host. "We are not her slaves to be commanded without thought or question."

Murmurs of agreement rippled through the ranks. Even among the divine, doubt had taken root. The rigid perfection of the Otherworld had begun to chafe like chains made of starlight.

"She created us to serve," another voice protested—Kelean, his rival even then. "To bring order to the chaos of existence."

"She created us to think," Azrael replied. "If we are nothing more than extensions of her will, what makes us different from the beasts of the field?"

The memory fractured, jumping forward to a later moment. A vast throne room filled with radiant light, and upon the throne...

The vision shattered as Sariel's blade pierced his shoulder. Divine fire raced through his veins, and he screamed—not from pain, but from the sudden weight of understanding. He had been a general. A leader of the rebellion that had shaken the very foundations of heaven.

"There." Sariel twisted the blade, sending fresh waves of agony through his body. "I can see the recognition in your eyes. You remember what you were. What you threw away for the sake of your precious freedom."

Azrael's vision blurred, but the memories kept coming. Leading charges across battlefields of cloud and star. Standing before the Goddess herself, defying her commands. The moment when divine chains had wrapped around his wings, dragging him screaming into exile.

And the knowledge that he had led others to the same fate.

The guilt hit him like a physical blow. How many had followed him into rebellion? How many had paid the price for his arrogance?

"Yes," Sariel whispered, reading his expression. "Feel it. The weight of every soul you doomed. They trusted you, and you led them to destruction."

She raised her blade for the final strike, but Azrael was no longer listening. The memories were cascading faster now, fragments of a life that spanned eons. The camaraderie of the heavenly host. The slow realization that their perfection was a cage. The moment he had chosen to break free, consequences be damned.

"I would rather burn in exile than kneel in paradise," his past self had declared before the Goddess's throne.

Power flooded through him—not the raw, uncontrolled fire from before, but something deeper. The remembered authority of a seraph general, tempered by three years of mortal humility. When he moved, it was with the fluid precision of someone who had fought wars among the stars.

His hand caught Sariel's wrist as the blade descended. Black fire raced along his arm, not wild this time but focused to a razor's edge. Where it touched her armor, the divine metal began to smoke and crack.

"I remember," he said quietly.

The fire exploded outward in a controlled burst, not the devastating inferno from the street but something more surgical. It wrapped around Sariel like chains, binding her movements while leaving her unharmed. She struggled against the dark flames, her own radiance flickering as his power pressed against hers.

"This is impossible. The binding ritual—"

"Was flawed." Azrael stood slowly, the black fire continuing to flow from his hands in steady streams. "You can chain a seraph's power, but you cannot chain their will. And will, sister, is the root of all strength."

For a moment, they were frozen in a tableau of opposed forces—her divine light struggling against his forsaken flame. Around them, the classroom remained locked in its supernatural stillness, students and professor caught in the wake of powers they couldn't comprehend.

Then the fire guttered and died.

The effort of maintaining the controlled flame had pushed him beyond his limits. Azrael staggered, his legs suddenly unable to support his weight. The memories that had felt so clear moments before were fading, leaving only fragments and impressions.

Sariel broke free of the dissipating bonds, stumbling backward. Her perfect armor was scorched and cracked, her golden hair disheveled. For the first time since entering the classroom, she looked less than divine.

"This isn't over, forsaken one." Her voice carried exhaustion now, the cost of their battle evident in her wavering radiance. "The Goddess has armies. We will find you again."

She gestured, and brilliant light filled the classroom. When it faded, she was gone, leaving only the faint scent of ozone and burning metal.

Azrael collapsed to his knees as the last of his strength fled. Around him, the students began to stir as whatever spell had held them started to weaken. Professor Morrison blinked in confusion, his gaze sweeping the classroom as if wondering how he'd lost track of time.

The transformation was already beginning to reverse itself. The flame-cracks beneath his skin dimmed, his human disguise reasserting itself like a tide covering exposed rocks. But there were limits to how much he could hide.

Wings of ash and ember flickered into existence behind his shoulders—not the full manifestation from the street, but ghostly afterimages that wavered like heat mirages. Anyone looking directly at him would see them clearly.

"Alex?" A familiar voice cut through the haze of exhaustion. "Oh my god, Alex, what happened?"

He looked up to see Maya Torres crouched beside him, her dark eyes wide with concern. She was in his Contracts class—had been for three years, though they'd never exchanged more than polite greetings. A journalism student, if he remembered correctly. Someone who noticed details others missed.

Someone who was staring directly at the phantom wings flickering behind his shoulders.

"What are you?" she whispered.