The western sector had been quiet for three days.

That should have been the first warning.

Athena had noticed the silence. Had filed it away in the back of her mind, next to the fractures she couldn’t map and the prayers she couldn’t answer. But she had been too busy rebuilding the map table, too tired to chase ghosts.

She should have sent someone to check.

She didn’t.

The attack came at dawn. Not the dawn of a new day—dawn didn’t exist anymore in Heaven’s cracked twilight. Just the moment when the light shifted from pale to paler, when the guards on the western fracture changed shifts.

Azrael’s angels struck the soul stream like a blade through cloth.

No warning. No negotiation. No demand for surrender.

They fell on the stream of light—the thin, endless river of souls flowing from the Citadel to the underworld—and began to cut.

Not capture. Not redirect. Sever.

Swords of cold fire sliced through the stream. The light fractured, scattered, dimmed. Souls that had waited centuries for release spun into the void between realms, lost before they could scream.

The guards stationed at the fracture died first.

Then the healers.

Then the runners who tried to get word to Athena’s camp.

By the time Hermes arrived, the soul stream was in pieces.

---

He found the western sector in chaos.

Not the chaos of battle—the chaos of aftermath. Bodies lay scattered across the cracked white plain. Some were angels who had followed Azrael, struck down by the guards before they fell. Others were the guards themselves, their wings bent, their armor shattered.

The soul stream flickered where it had been cut. Thin strands of light reached toward each other, trying to reconnect, but the wounds were too deep. Every few seconds, another strand snapped, and another soul drifted into nothing.

Hermes landed near the fracture.

A young healer—one of Raphael’s assistants, barely old enough to remember the war—knelt over a body. Her hands were covered in light and blood.

"Report," Hermes said.

The healer didn’t look up.

"They came from the fracture. We didn’t see them until it was too late."

"How many?"

"Dozens. Maybe more."

"And the soul stream?"

The healer’s hands stopped moving.

"Gone. Not all of it. But enough."

Hermes looked at the flickering strands. The light was dimmer now, thinner. He had seen soul streams before—had guided lost souls back to the underworld more times than he could count. He had never seen one bleed.

"Where’s Athena?"

The healer finally looked up. Her eyes were red.

"She’s coming."

---

Athena arrived an hour later.

She walked through the wreckage without speaking. Her face was calm—the calm of a general who had seen too much to be surprised—but her hands were shaking.

She stopped at the edge of the broken soul stream.

The light flickered.

"How many?" she asked.

Hermes stood beside her.

"We don’t know yet. Dozens of souls. Maybe hundreds."

"They weren’t trying to capture them."

"No."

"Then what?"

Hermes looked at the bodies. At the guards, the healers, the runners. At the angels who had followed Azrael, their faces frozen in surprise, as if they hadn’t expected to die.

"They were trying to hurt us," he said.

Athena’s jaw tightened.

"That’s not a strategy."

"It’s not supposed to be."

---

The young healer found the dead angel an hour later.

Not one of the guards. Not one of Azrael’s followers. Something else. An angel who had been stationed at the fracture for weeks, who had helped reinforce the anchor, who had volunteered for the shift because no one else wanted to work the western sector.

He lay face-down near the edge of the fracture, his wings spread at an angle that meant they were broken. Not from the fall—from something else.

The healer turned him over.

His eyes were open. His mouth was slightly parted. He looked surprised, the way people looked when death came faster than they expected.

The healer saw the wound.

Not a blade. Not a spear. Something else. A mark carved into his chest, deep enough to pierce bone, precise enough to spell words.

The Father sees.

The healer stepped back.

Her hands stopped glowing.

She didn’t scream. Didn’t run. She just stood there, staring at the words, at the dead angel’s face, at the light bleeding from the fracture behind him.

Then she turned and walked toward Athena.

---

Athena read the words in silence.

Her face didn’t change. Her hands stopped shaking.

"Who found him?"

The young healer pointed at herself.

"Did anyone else see?"

"No. Just me."

Athena nodded slowly.

"Keep it that way."

The healer blinked.

"But—"

"This didn’t happen. Not yet. Not until I understand what it means."

The healer looked at the dead angel. At the words carved into his chest. At the light still flickering from the fracture.

"Athena—"

"Go."

The healer went.

---

Hermes appeared beside Athena.

"What did she find?"

Athena didn’t answer.

He looked past her, toward the body. Saw the wound. Read the words.

His wings twitched.

"Azrael didn’t do that."

"No."

"Then who?"

Athena was silent for a long moment.

"I don’t know."

"That’s not an answer."

"It’s the only one I have."

---

The soul stream flickered again.

Another strand snapped. Another soul drifted into the void.

Athena watched it go.

"The Father sees," she said quietly.

Hermes shifted his weight.

"He’s gone. The Tribunal fell. There’s nothing left to see."

"Then why would someone carve his name into a dead angel?"

Hermes didn’t have an answer.

Neither did Athena.

---

Zeus heard the news from Hera.

He was still sitting at the edge of Heaven, still watching the mortal world, still staring at the place where the child’s face had appeared in the clouds.

Hera stood behind him.

"Azrael attacked the western sector. The soul stream is damaged. Dozens of souls lost."

Zeus didn’t turn.

"Anyone else?"

"Guards. Healers. One of the runners."

"Azrael?"

"Gone."

Zeus nodded slowly.

"They’re not trying to win."

"No," Hera said. "They’re trying to send a message."

Zeus finally looked at her.

"What message?"

Hera met his gaze.

"That the war isn’t over."

---

Deep in the underworld, Hades felt the souls falter.

Not the ones inside him—the ones in the stream. The flow had slowed. Thinned. He had been walking toward the fracture that led to the Citadel, following Persephone’s voice, when the pressure changed.

He stopped.

Listened.

The stream was weaker now. Not broken, but wounded.

He closed his eyes.

"Hold on," he whispered.

Not to Persephone.

To the souls.

---

Athena stood at the edge of the broken soul stream until the light stopped flickering.

Not because it had healed. Because there was nothing left to flicker.

The strands had reconnected in some places. In others, they had simply... stopped.

She looked at her hands.

The silver lines were gone. The map was gone. The fractures were still spreading.

And now, carved into a dead angel’s chest, a name that should have been forgotten.

The Father sees.

She didn’t know what it meant.

But she knew it wasn’t over.