Page 100 of Eclipse Born

He moved on to Cassiel, though he was clearly less certain how to treat an angel. “Can you heal yourself?” he asked bluntly.

Cassiel managed a weak nod. “Given time. My grace is... depleted.”

Sterling nodded once, accepting this as he would any other injury information, then stood and walked past us. His shoulders were rigid with a grief and fury he kept tightly controlled. I knew that control had its limits, and we were dangerously close to them.

I leaned back against the wall, struggling to process what had just happened. “We weren't even close,” I said, the words tasting like ash. “He was toying with us the whole time.”

Cade stirred, his eyes opening slowly, unfocused at first but gradually sharpening as he returned to consciousness. “He wasn't at full strength,” he muttered, voice rough with pain.

The weight of that truth settled on me like a stone. If Azrael was weak, if that was him still recovering from his imprisonment, then what would he be capable of at full power?

We patched ourselves up as best we could, working in near silence. Sterling had medical supplies laid out with practical efficiency, moving between us to address the worst injuries first. His hands were steady, experienced at treating wounds that would have sent normal people running to the emergency room.

The warehouse felt smaller somehow, the walls pressing in, the air heavy with the knowledge of what we'd unleashed. Hawk's absence was a palpable thing, a hole in our group that none of us were ready to acknowledge directly.

Cassiel sat on a wooden crate, his posture unusually slumped, the proud angel reduced to something almost human in his exhaustion. When he finally spoke, his voice was weary but determined.

“Azrael is powerful, but he's still recovering,” he said. “The prison weakened him. He won't make a move until he regains his full grace. We have time.”

I looked up from where Sterling was wrapping my ribs, the bandages tight enough to make breathing uncomfortable but necessary. “Time to do what?”

“Train. Prepare.” Cassiel's silver eyes met mine directly. “And pray we don't doom the world before we can stop him.”

Cade flexed his bandaged fingers, his expression hardened into something that reminded me uncomfortably of how he'dlooked without his soul. “No more playing defense,” he said. “We need to go on the offensive.”

Cassiel shook his head. “You don't understand. We are not ready. Not even close.”

“Then we get ready,” Cade insisted. “We find a way to kill him before he gets to full strength.”

“It's not that simple,” Cassiel said. “Azrael is not just powerful. He's the original Nephilim, born of the first union between angel and human. His existence shaped the laws that govern both Heaven and Hell.”

“So what are you saying?” I asked, wincing as Sterling finished with my ribs and moved on to checking the cut on my forehead. “That we can't kill him?”

“I'm saying that killing him may have consequences we can't predict,” Cassiel replied. “The universe seeks balance. Destroying a being of Azrael's power could tear the fabric of reality itself.”

“Great,” I muttered. “So we're screwed either way.”

Sterling had remained silent throughout this exchange, his focus on treating our injuries rather than joining the discussion. But the rigid set of his shoulders and the mechanical precision of his movements spoke volumes about the storm brewing beneath the surface. When he reached for more bandages, I noticed his hands trembling slightly before he clenched them into fists to steady them.

“You ain't screwed till you're dead,” he said flatly, his voice rougher than usual. His eyes, when he looked up, carried a grief I was only beginning to understand. “And even then, sometimes you get a second chance.”

He looked at each of us in turn, his gaze lingering first on me, then shifting to Cassiel with undisguised anger. “So stop your whining and start figuring out a plan. Hawk deserved better than this. Better than what you did.” The accusationwas aimed directly at Cassiel, who lowered his eyes in silent acknowledgment.

“Sterling,” I began, still trying to process what he'd revealed about his relationship with Hawk. “I didn't know?—”

“That's right, you didn't,” he cut me off. “Nobody did. That's how we wanted it.” The pain in his voice was raw, exposed. “Forty years of loving someone and losing them and finding them again... and now I gotta bury him. So we ain't having that conversation. Not now.” His grief transformed into grim determination before my eyes. “What we are gonna do is figure out how to make this right. How to make sure Hawk didn't die for nothing.”

“He's right,” I said, pulling myself straighter despite the pain in my ribs. “We need a plan. And not just to stop Azrael. We need to understand what he wants, why he's so interested in me specifically.”

“And me,” Cade added quietly.

I nodded, my mind already working through the possibilities. “The runes in my bones, your mark... they're connected somehow. To each other, to Azrael. We need to understand how.”

“That means research,” Cade said, a hint of his old self showing through in his methodical approach to problem-solving. “Lore, history, anything we can find on the First Nephilim.”

“I can provide some information,” Cassiel offered. “Though my knowledge is limited by what Heaven allowed the Watchers to know.”

The conversation continued, discussions of strategy and resources and next steps. But beneath it all ran a current of uncertainty, of questions we didn't have answers to yet. What did Azrael truly want? What would happen when I unlocked my full power? And what was Cade still not remembering?

Cassiel's warning lingered in the air between us: “If we make the wrong move, this world won't survive what's coming.”

The warehouse felt too small suddenly, suffocating with the weight of responsibility, with the knowledge that we were the only ones who understood the threat we faced. The only ones who might be able to stop it.

I looked at Cade, battered but unbowed, at Sterling with his quiet strength, at Cassiel with his ancient wisdom. My team. My family, cobbled together from broken pieces but stronger for it.

“We train,” I said, putting as much conviction into the words as I could muster. “We fight. And we win.”

It wasn't a plan, not yet. But it was a start. And for now, that had to be enough.

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