The rain had not yet come, but the sky was heavy with the promise of it — a breath held too long, a hush before sorrow. The old clock in the hallway marked time with the brittle pulse of a weary heart.
Grandma Aina sat by the hearth, her fingers trembling as they unfolded the faded parchment. The envelope was yellowed, its seal an old wax mark pressed by a ring Valerie used to wear — the one shaped like a star caught between wings.
The letter smelled of lavender and old grief.
Hael lingered near the doorway, his pale gaze catching the tremor in the old woman's hand. Zyrán knelt on the rug nearby, playing with one of the dolls — the white-winged one. Neither of them spoke.
Aina began to read.
"My beloved mother,
If these words find you after my voice is gone from this world, know this — I never doubted you. The stories you told me as a child, of the war in the heavens and the guardians that walk among us — I believed every word, though I never dared admit it.
I know now that my time was borrowed. The doctors speak in long, gray words, but I hear the truth beneath them. If the day comes when my breath leaves me, promise me, mother, you'll find the one who watches over us. Ask him to protect my son.
I've felt his presence near Zyrán since the day he was born — the hush in the room, the warmth without cause, the light that lingered too long on his crib.
I believe there's an angel near him. I ask, no, I beg him — protect my boy. Keep him safe in this life until the day comes when we are together again.
He is everything good I ever made. Let no shadow take him.
I love you, Mama.
— Valerie"
Aina's throat caught on a sob.
The candlelight bent, and the room seemed to lean with the weight of the words. She clutched the letter to her chest, and for a fleeting, trembling moment — her heart stuttered.
A sharp pain.
A forgotten name.
And then, like a bird struck mid-flight, she collapsed.
The letter fell like a pale moth to the floor.
"Grandma?" Zyrán's voice cracked, his small hands scrambling to her side. "Grandma Aina—?"
Hael was already there, gathering Aina's frail body into his arms. But he could see it in her eyes — the dulling, the storm-cloud confusion. A vessel cracked.
A stroke.
She no longer knew the names of her ghosts.
The days that followed were a gray blur. The house dimmed, its walls seeming to mourn. Aina's memory drifted, unmoored, recognizing faces only in fragments. Sometimes she would call Zyrán "Valerie." Other times, she would simply stare out the window, murmuring a name neither of them knew.
Zyrán sat at her bedside, his knuckles white as he clutched the doll, his world breaking in quiet, merciless increments.
"It isn't fair," he whispered one night, after the nurse left and the house fell silent.
Hael stood by the window, his silhouette limned in the ghostly sheen of moonlight. "It never was," he replied.
Zyrán's lip trembled. "If God was real… if he cared… why let this happen?"
His voice cracked, anger bleeding into despair. "Why take her from me? Why take my mom? Why—?"
Hael crossed the room in two strides, his hand reaching for Zyrán's, but the boy pulled away, fierce and fragile all at once.
"I don't want your comfort," Zyrán spat, voice thick. "I want to die too."
The words landed like broken glass.
And then — Hael knelt, his palm brushing Zyrán's tear-damp cheek. "I cannot let you," he said, voice softer than a lullaby, sadder than winter rain. "Not while there is breath left in you."
Zyrán's bravado crumbled. A shudder wracked his small frame, and he buried his face against Hael's chest.
"I hate you," he sobbed.
But his fingers clung to Hael's shirt.
Hael let him cry, one hand in the boy's dark hair, feeling the tremor of a soul near breaking. The room felt heavier, the air thick with sorrow. Yet something flickered between them — a terrible, aching closeness. The line between protector and companion blurring.
Zyrán's grief was a storm, and Hael held him through it.
Later, long past midnight, when Zyrán's breathing slowed and he slept — Hael whispered to the dark, not expecting an answer.
"You made a cruel world, old friend. But you won't have him."
Outside, the rain began to fall.