Page 78 of Fallen: Darkness Ascending, Vol.1

Epilogue

SORIEL

T he storm has passed, but the world has not returned to stillness. It knows a greater battle has yet to be won.

I stand beside what remains of the motel, a structure that feels more scarred than complete.

Rain pools in the shattered floorboards, whispering through broken beams and warped metal.

The sky above is a bruised gray, streaked with the last dying threads of fire-red lightning.

Wind shudders low against the earth, as if reluctant to be the first to speak after such retribution.

Nhialii stands where the rift once opened— motionless, quiet, burning from the inside. Their wings are folded now, not in surrender, but in exhaustion. Divine fatigue. The kind no mortal sleep could ever cure.

They do not look at each other, nor do either of us speak. Some things should not be interrupted. The quiet between us stretches long and solemn, until Nhialii finally draws a breath. It’s heavy and unsteady.

They turn to me, not as the person I first watched die, and not as the weapon they’ve become, but a new rarity.

“I thought it would end,” they say quietly. “That his death would… finish something.”

“It didn’t,” I reply. “However, it changed something.”

Their gaze returns to the horizon, where ash curls upward in soft ribbons.

“What now?” A weighted question only they can answer.

“You’ve unraveled the thread,” I say. “And now you decide what you weave from its remains.”

Nhialii doesn’t answer. They don’t need to.

The fire behind their eyes has dimmed, yet simmers below the surface.

There’s too much left undone and too many shadows lurking in the stillness.

Not all monsters burn in damnation. Some walk among us, smiling.

Others claw their way back, changed, while some are remade.

The rest of the world will never know what happened in that motel room. The blood will fade, and this storm will pass. Headlines will forget the victims and move on to the next newsworthy story. What lives inside Nhialii will not rest, not yet.

Far above, where clouds sharpen into blades and quiet turns to judgment, we can feel their glare. The Legion waits. We were given our warning. The next battle will be war, and we’ll be ready.

They turn from the wreckage and start walking away. I follow, not to lead, but to stand beside what rises next. The Earth will tremble when we return, and the divine will learn what it tried to extinguish.