Azrael's POV
I wake up actually feeling better for the first time in days.
The curse is still there—I can feel it wrapped around my heart like thorns—but it's not squeezing as tight. The fever has broken. My wounds have stopped bleeding. I can breathe without feeling like my lungs are full of broken glass.
Elara is asleep beside me, curled on her side on the stone floor. Her hand is still holding mine, like she fell asleep mid-healing and couldn't let go. Even in sleep, she looks exhausted. Dark circles under her eyes. Her skin pale. She's been using too much magic trying to keep me alive.
The life-binding spell pulses between us. I feel her heartbeat like it's my own, steady and strong. Feel her dreams—confused images of Heaven, her sister, me.
She saved my life. Multiple times now. Even after I almost killed her in the cellar.
I don't deserve her compassion.
"Awake, are we?" Morgana appears from nowhere, making me jolt. She's sitting cross-legged in the air, floating three feet off the ground. "Good. We have work to do."
"What kind of work?" I ask quietly, not wanting to wake Elara.
"The kind that will keep you both alive." Morgana snaps her fingers, and we're suddenly standing in a different room—a vast training arena with walls that shimmer like water. Elara appears beside me, gasping awake.
"What—where—" She looks around wildly.
"Training," Morgana says simply. "You two created something extraordinary yesterday. That silver light—that perfect balance of divine, demonic, and corrupted magic? That shouldn't exist. But it does, because you exist. And Raphael will do anything to destroy you before you learn to use it properly."
"How long do we have?" I ask. "Before Uriel breaks through your domain?"
"Three days. Maybe four." Morgana starts pacing. "He's already weakening my barriers. The siege is working. So we need to make you dangerous enough that when he does break through, you can actually fight back."
Elara's hand finds mine. "What do we have to do?"
"Learn to control the bond." Morgana gestures, and the training arena shifts. Suddenly we're surrounded by floating targets—glowing spheres of different colors. "Right now, you can only access that silver light when you're both terrified and desperate. That's useless. You need to call it at will."
"How?" I ask.
"By trusting each other completely." Morgana's expression turns serious. "The bond only works when you're perfectly synchronized. Same heartbeat. Same breath. Same intention. You have to stop being two separate people and become one united force."
She snaps her fingers. One of the targets shoots toward me like a bullet.
Instinct takes over. I throw up my hand and shadows explode outward, my demonic power reacting automatically. The blast destroys the target but keeps going, crashing into the wall hard enough to crack it.
"Uncontrolled," Morgana critiques. "Dangerous. You're fighting yourself—your angel half and demon half constantly at war. That's what the curse feeds on. That internal conflict."
Another target shoots at Elara. She throws healing light at it, but the magic sputters and dies before reaching the target. The sphere slams into her chest, knocking her backward.
I catch her before she hits the ground. "Are you okay?"
"My magic is broken," she says, frustrated. "Ever since I used blood magic, it's been corrupted. It doesn't work right anymore."
"It's not broken," Morgana corrects. "It's evolving. You're not a pure divine healer anymore, Elara. You're something new. You need to stop trying to be what you were and embrace what you're becoming."
"A monster?" Elara's voice cracks.
"A weapon," Morgana says. "A very powerful one. Now, let's try again. Together this time."
She sends ten targets at us simultaneously.
I pull Elara against my chest, one arm wrapped around her waist. "Trust me?"
"I bound my life to yours," she says. "I think trust is implied."
Fair point.
I close my eyes and reach through our bond, not just sensing her heartbeat but trying to match it. Trying to sync my breathing with hers. Trying to feel what she feels.
At first, nothing happens. We're too different—angel and demon, healer and warrior, light and shadow.
But then I feel it. The moment where our hearts beat as one. Where her magic flows into mine and mine into hers. Where we stop being Azrael and Elara and become... us.
Silver light explodes from our joined hands.
It hits all ten targets simultaneously, disintegrating them into sparkles of light. The power is beautiful and terrifying, perfectly balanced between destruction and creation.
When it fades, we're both shaking.
"That," Morgana says with satisfaction, "is what I'm talking about. Do it again."
We train for hours. Learning to call the silver light at will. Learning to fight together like we share one body. Learning to trust each other completely, because any hesitation breaks the connection.
It's exhausting and exhilarating and intimate in a way I wasn't expecting. Every time we sync through the bond, I feel everything she feels. Her fear. Her determination. Her growing feelings for me that she's trying hard to ignore.
And she probably feels mine too. The guilt I carry for every angel I've killed. The rage at Raphael for destroying my life. The unexpected softness I feel every time I look at her.
We're in the middle of destroying our fiftieth set of targets when Morgana suddenly freezes.
"What's wrong?" Elara asks.
Morgana's expression darkens. "They're here. Sooner than I thought."
The training arena dissolves. We're back in the main chamber, and through Morgana's viewing portal, I see them.
Not just Uriel and his battalion.
Raphael has arrived.
The Archangel stands at the border of Morgana's domain, radiating divine power so intense it makes the air shimmer. His perfect face is cold and beautiful and completely merciless.
"Morgana Blackwater," his voice echoes through the realm. "Release the fugitives, or I will burn your domain to ash and drag them out of the ruins."
Morgana's jaw clenches. "He's strong enough to do it too. I can't hold against an Archangel."
"So what do we do?" Elara whispers.
Before anyone can answer, the viewing portal shows something that makes my blood freeze.
Raphael places his hand on Lyanna's shoulder. Elara's sister gasps, her eyes going wide with pain. Dark marks spread across her skin—the same curse that's killing me.
"You have one hour," Raphael announces. "Give yourselves up, or I kill the twin. Your choice, Elara."
The portal closes.
Elara stares at the empty space where her sister's image was, tears streaming down her face. Through our bond, I feel her heart breaking.
"He's going to kill her," she whispers. "He's going to kill Lyanna to force me out."
"It's a trap," I say urgently. "He wants you to surrender. He'll kill you both anyway."
"I know." Elara's hands are shaking. "But she's my sister. I can't just let her die."
"You saved her life once already. That's why you fell."
"And I'd do it again." She looks at me with eyes full of tears and steel. "I can't be like them, Azrael. I can't sacrifice people to save myself."
Morgana makes a frustrated noise. "You walk out there, you die. Simple as that."
"Then we don't walk," Elara says quietly. "We fight."
"Against Raphael? With three days of training?" Morgana shakes her head. "That's suicide."
Through our bond, I feel Elara's determination crystallizing into a plan. A desperate, dangerous, probably-going-to-kill-us-both plan.
"What are you thinking?" I ask carefully.
She looks at me, and her eyes are blazing with that same fire I saw when she saved me in the forest. "I'm thinking we use the prophecy against him."
"How?"
"He wants us dead because he's afraid we'll reshape reality, right? So let's give him something to actually be afraid of."
"Elara—"
"You said the bond makes us stronger together. That our combined power can create something new." She grips my hands. "So let's show Raphael exactly what we can do when we stop holding back."