Belle Falkrona hovered high in the sky, so distance away from the Falkrona Estate.
She did not often go near it anymore.
More than a century had passed, and the household she had once known had long since changed its face. The people were different now, the voices unfamiliar, the old rooms carrying mories of the dead rather than the living. Ti had done what ti always did, it had replaced, softened, erased. Even the bloodline itself had grown thinner with each generation, until what remained felt less like family and more like the fading echo of one.
And yet Belle still ca sotis.
Not for the Estate itself, and not truly for those who lived there now, but for what it represented.
Right now, her foster brother’s bloodline and rightful bloodline were ruling there. She wasn’t really born from a Falkrona yet the re fact that her father was Horus, the father and God of the House, it was literally making her more legitimate.
She had been entrusted to the Head back then and grew with her foster brother.
Their bond had never been simple. It had been layered with contradictions, with closeness and distance, affection and resentnt, warmth and old wounds neither of them had ever fully put into words. But despite everything, he had been the only person she had ever allowed into that place in her heart.
He was gone now.
Only his descendants remained, generation after generation inheriting the House, the title, the land, and the burdens tied to the Falkrona na. They were not hers, not really. Not in the way Amael was hers. Still, they knew who she was. The current head of the House especially knew better than to forget it.
Belle’s gaze lingered on the distant Estate, silver eyes unreadable.
She had raised Amael there once.
That had not been a coincidence.
At the ti, she had wanted him rooted in her world, in her blood, in the Falkrona line rather than in Nihil’s. She had wanted him tied to sothing mortal, sothing earthly, sothing that belonged to her side of existence rather than the cold, sacred distance of the Garden. Even back then, when her feelings toward Nihil had not yet frozen into the bitterness they had beco now, there had always been caution in her.
Wariness and distrust.
Not only of Nihil, but of everything that ca from the Garden.
Everything too close to Eden.
She had known what Amael was from the very beginning. She had known what kind of forces would one day look at him and see not a child, not a son, but a vessel, a possibility, a weapon, a future catastrophe to be controlled. She had known that if she did not draw the line quickly, others would do it for her. So she kept him at her side. She raised him away from Nihil’s influence as much as she could, away from Eden’s reach, away from all the hands that might have tried to shape him into sothing she never wanted him to beco.
She had wanted him to belong to himself before he belonged to anyone else.
And yes, selfishly, she had wanted him to belong to her.
At first, she had hoped he might grow close to the Falkrona children, his so-called cousins, if one insisted on using such a word for a bond that was awkward at best. She had imagined, however briefly, that he might find so comfort among them, so ordinary thread of kinship to make his life lighter.
But it had beco clear very quickly that it would never be so simple.
Amael had always been different. Too different. Children sensed it, adults feared it, and families, even loving ones rarely knew what to do with soone who carried sothing ancient and dangerous in his very being. As he grew older, the distance only widened. In ti, he stopped living there altogether. Not with the Falkronas, and not with Nihil’s side in the Garden either.
He chose his own place.
Belle understood why.
Of course she did.
If anyone understood the urge to stand apart from everyone and everything that claid a right to you, it was her. She had never once tried to take that freedom from him, and she never would. Amael’s freedom ant too much to her. More than pride. More than comfort. More than her own selfish wish to keep him close.
Still... she missed him.
The feeling remained, hidden beneath all her calm. She wished, sotis, that she could simply go and live in Xenithia with him. The image ca to her more often than she cared to admit: Amael there, laughing in that easy way of his, those two girls at his side, his two beauties. Belle already thought of them as his wives, whether the world had caught up to that truth or not. She could see it so clearly sotis: a quiet life, a ho warm with life and noise, her son safe where she could see him.
But she knew she could not do that.
Her presence would draw eyes, attention and so potentially danger.
And the last thing Belle wanted was to turn Amael’s happiness into a target.
So she stayed away, however much it stung, and allowed him the room to build his life with the two won he loved. She would not interfere in that. She would not beco another chain around him, no matter how badly she wanted to remain at his side.
After one last look at the Estate below, Belle lifted a hand and unfolded the ssage that had been delivered to her by one of her father’s falcons.
It had arrived later than she would have liked.
Her eyes moved quickly across the contents, and her expression changed only slightly.
Horus had left.
It seed Apophis had surfaced sowhere.
Belle folded the ssage back in silence, her lips closing in thin line.
Apophis was one of the Kalamity Gods. That alone was enough to explain her father’s disappearance. If he had moved, then the situation was serious. No one treated the stirrings of a Kalamity God lightly. Creatures like that were not disasters in the ordinary sense, they were ancient ruin given will, the kind of existence that could not be allowed to cross fully into this world.
She hoped they would destroy that monster before it managed to slip through completely.
The world already carried enough nightmares.
Lucifer alone was more than enough to poison the future. The thought of dealing not only with him but also with the Primordial Evils was enough to make even Belle’s cold calm thin at the edges. There were simply too many ancient horrors still breathing in the dark, too many sealed catastrophes pressing against the cracks of creation.
As that thought passed through her, she felt a presence.
Belle raised her head at once, her silver eyes narrowing.
Above her, suspended in the sky as if he had always been there, stood Michael.
He floated in the open air with that sa irritating smile.
And from the mont Belle saw it, she knew she was not going to like whatever ca next.
"What do you want, Michael?" Belle asked coldly. "You usually don’t co down here to stain your robes in the mortal world."
Michael gave her a look of offense, hands clasped neatly behind his back. "Who do you take for? I care about this world. I co here often to see how it fares."
"Yes, of course," Belle said with a roll of her eyes. "I’m sure that’s exactly why."
There was no warmth in her voice, only impatience. She had no desire to entertain him, no patience for whatever ga he was about to start.
"Anyway," she said, already turning away, "I’m not in the mood to humor you today."
Then he spoke again.
"Since when," Michael asked lightly, "has Amael been colluding with Evil Gods?"
Belle stopped at once.
The air around her seed to harden.
Slowly, she turned back and fixed him with a stare so cold it could have cut stone. "What did you just say?"
Michael’s smile sharpened. "I asked you a question, Belle. Your beloved son appears to be involved with one of Lucifer’s Generals. And not just any stray servant, but one who may have played a considerable role in the Blood Moon War in Sancta Vedelia."
"My son has nothing to do with Sancta Vedelia," Belle snapped with a snort. "Or that absurd war. If you want soone to bla, ask rithra. This is her ss."
Michael let out a soft laugh. "How elegantly you redirect the matter." His eyes narrowed. "But that does not change the truth. The Vessel of Samael Eveningstar is keeping company with one of Lucifer’s Generals." He tilted his head slightly. "How do you think Lady Raphiel would respond to that information, I wonder?"
Belle’s expression darkened further.
She said nothing, but the warning in her gaze was there.
At once, Michael’s smile disappeared.
"It may be ti," he said, his voice suddenly cold, "for the Vessel to be changed once again."
Belle’s whole body stiffened.
"You wouldn’t dare!"
The words ca out with barely contained rage.
"I would," Michael replied. "I am the Supre Commander of His Supremacy Eden’s armies. If anything threatens him, I will remove it." His gaze locked onto hers with rciless calm. "So tell , Belle, where is your son now? Still in Sancta Vedelia? Still involving himself in that war for reasons I have yet to uncover?"
For a mont, neither of them moved.
Then Michael gave her one final, glacial look and vanished in a pulse of golden light.
Belle remained frozen only a second longer.
Then her teeth clenched.
And she shot through the sky.
Straight toward Sancta Vedelia.
She had known it. Sowhere deep down, she had known this would beco a problem.
Amael’s attachnt to Sirius Anox had always been dangerous. She had warned him about it again and again, told him to cut that connection off before it rotted into sothing worse. If Amael had allowed it, Sirius would have already been dead long ago. Belle would have made sure of it herself.
The only reason he still lived was because Amael had wanted it that way.
Because, for reasons Belle had never fully accepted, her son had taken a liking to him.
But this ti was different.
This ti rumors alone could kill Amael.
Rumors of treason, of collusion, of sympathy with Lucifer’s side, those were not the kind of whispers one survived forever, not when one carried Samael’s na, not when n like Michael were already looking for an excuse.
Belle’s silver eyes burned coldly.
If Sirius Anox had beco a threat to Amael’s life, then she would erase him without hesitation.
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