When the Chains Tighten
Madeline
The ground was now black with ash and blood.
It wasn’t just the stone beneath my boots either—it was the very air in my lungs, the wind, the entire realm. Everything reeked of smoke and iron and ozone, thick with the scent of magic wrung dry. My breath rasped through my throat as I stood half-crouched beside the still-smoking ruin of a broken angel. Its wings had been shredded, like parchment torn apart in a storm. The body didn’t move. They never did—not once the light or shadow left them.
All around me, the battlefield was littered with the fallen.
Some wore the robes of Heaven, now scorched and tattered and covered in blood, their hoods thrown back to reveal bloodless faces—eyes still glowing faintly with power, even in death. Others were made of fi
