Samael did not arrive abruptly.
He let himself be noticed.
Zyrán sensed him first—not as threat, but as inevitability. The air in the room thickened, not with dread but with clarity, as if every unnecessary thought had been gently removed. Hael, seated at the table, stilled at once. His hand tightened around the mug he'd been holding, knuckles whitening.
"You're early," Hael said quietly.
Samael stepped into view as though he had always been there. Red hair neatly kept, dark coat unwrinkled, his blue eyes reflecting neither warmth nor malice—only assessment.
"No," Samael replied. "I'm precisely on time."
Zyrán stood. "Say what you came to say."
Samael's gaze lingered on him—not lingering too long, not predatory. Measuring. Then it shifted to Hael, and for the first time there was no mockery there.
"You've progressed faster than I expected," Samael said. "Your mortality has… settled."
Hael said nothing.
"I've watched you forget small things," Samael continued. "Lose endurance. Learn pain without metaphor." He nodded once, almost respectful. "You are fully human now."
Zyrán felt his chest tighten. "That's not your concern."
"It is now," Samael said calmly. "Because the convergence has narrowed."
He took a step closer—not invading, just reducing distance until the truth could no longer pretend to be abstract.
"The world cannot hold this indefinitely," Samael said. "Love that bends reality must be compensated for. You already know this."
Zyrán swallowed. "Then why haven't you acted?"
"Because force would be inefficient," Samael replied. "And because I wanted certainty."
He met Hael's gaze directly.
"You would not turn back," Samael said. "Even now."
Hael's voice was steady. "No."
Samael nodded. "Good. Then this can be clean."
Zyrán's jaw tightened. "What are you offering?"
Samael folded his hands behind his back, posture composed.
"A correction," he said. "One that preserves the world, honors your choices, and minimizes loss."
Zyrán felt dread bloom—not sharp, but cold.
"Speak," Hael said.
Samael did.
"Hael returns to eternity," he said plainly. "Not as angel, not as general—simply as a being removed from time. His mortality ceases. The convergence dissolves."
Zyrán shook his head immediately. "No."
Samael raised a hand—not silencing, but pausing.
"In exchange," he continued, "Zyrán remains fully human. No power. No fading. No burden of leadership beyond what he chooses. The community stabilizes. The strain ends."
Zyrán's breath came shallow. "You're asking him to leave."
"I am offering him survival," Samael corrected. "And I am offering you a life unbroken by cosmic consequence."
Hael closed his eyes briefly.
"And the cost?" Hael asked.
Samael's gaze sharpened. "You forget each other."
The words fell gently.
"Not violently," Samael added. "Not all at once. The memory erodes naturally. No ache. No grief that cripples. Just… absence where something once was."
Zyrán felt the floor tilt beneath him. "That's not mercy."
"It is," Samael said. "It is the only mercy that works."
Hael opened his eyes. "And if we refuse?"
Samael looked at him fully now.
"Then the convergence continues," he said. "The world grows increasingly unstable. Systems fracture. Responsibility concentrates again. And eventually—balance will be taken."
"Taken how?" Zyrán demanded.
Samael did not hesitate. "Through fading. Through erasure. Through a loss that will not be gentle."
Silence swallowed the room.
Zyrán turned to Hael, panic threading through his restraint. "Don't listen to him."
Hael looked at Zyrán with unbearable tenderness.
"He's not lying," Hael said softly.
Zyrán's voice broke. "You don't get to decide this alone."
"I know," Hael replied. "That's why I haven't."
Samael watched them, expression unreadable.
"I will give you time," he said. "Because this is not temptation. It is resolution."
He stepped back.
"When you are ready," Samael continued, "you will understand that this offer does not ask who you love."
"It asks what you are willing to let remain."
The room warmed as his presence withdrew—not vanished, simply no longer required.
Zyrán sank into the chair, hands shaking. "He's asking us to choose forgetting."
Hael knelt beside him, taking his hands firmly, human warmth grounding human fear.
"No," Hael said. "He's asking us to choose what kind of ending we can live with."
Zyrán pressed his forehead to Hael's shoulder, breath ragged. "I don't want a world that keeps going if you're not in it."
Hael held him close. "And I don't want a life that survives by unmaking us."
They stayed there, entwined, while outside the city breathed—strained, waiting.
Samael watched from afar, certain now.
Not of the outcome.
But of the cost.