Divine Intervention (Sneak Peek)

The wind howled across the barren wastes, dragging ash and grit across the sky like a dying breath. The land below was quiet and desolate. Broken teeth of ruined stone stood from the soil, remnants of a world that had long since collapsed under the weight of its own sins.

And then, from above, she came.

She landed quietly. No sound. No announcement. Just her delicate bare feet pressing into the dirt, and the faint glow around her flickering out as her wings faded, unfolding into nothing like smoke in the wind. Caelira stood still for a moment, taking it all in.

Her golden eyes shone faintly, cutting through the haze. Her silvery white hair was braided and looped along her head, neat and angelic, like it had been done a thousand times before. She wore loose wraps that clung gently to her form, the cloth soft, unbothered by the grit lingering in the air. Thin, delicate chains looped over her arms, her legs, even her feet, swaying quietly with every movement. 

This world had nothing left. She had come anyway. 

She started walking. 

The land was silent, except for the wind dragging itself over rocks and the remnants of stone buildings. No birds. No voices. But someone was here.

A figure moved between the ruins—slow, hunched, digging through rubble with something sharp in his hand. Caelira watched him from a distance. Wiry, almost skeletal, wrapped in torn cloth that barely held together. Skin dark and leathery from too much sun, too much time. His hair was almost gon. Feet bare, toes blackened and split. He muttered to himself as he worked, more beast than man from the looks of it. 

Still, he was alive. Still moving, still trying.

She followed him with a careful step. 

He never turned around, never looked back. But she knew he felt her. The way he slowed, the way he glanced over his shoulders once too often. He didn’t say anything, just grumbling lowly to himself as he trekked on.

He led her deeper into the ruins. Past shattered walls and collapsed roofs until he slipped through a narrow break in a stone building half-buried in the dirt. He ducked low and disappeared inside. 

Caelira waited.

Then followed. 

She stayed still, her eyes peering through a narrow crack in the stone. The inside of what appeared to be his shelter was dim, lit only by a small oil lamp flickering weakly on the floor. It's light spilled over the jagged walls, a bed made of bundled cloth, and piles of scavenged junk spread out around the space: rusted iron, broken wood, lengths of old rope, and bones. Nothing of worth. Nothing clean. 

The man grumbled low in his throat as he dug through a sack near the wall. His voice rasped like old leather torn slowly. He moved with a twitch, sharp edge. His shoulders jerked, bony fingers clawing through his things like a beast rifling through its nest. He pulled out something round, stared at it too long, then let it drop with an annoyed huff.

He didn’t light another candle. Didn’t eat. Just crouched there, half in shadow, mumbling nonsense to himself. There was a feverish rhythm to it, like the words kept him from going insane. 

Caelira watched.

The wind outside pushed gently through the broken gaps in the stone, stirring her cloth wraps and the delicate chains looped around her arms and ankles. But she didn’t move. Not yet. She simply studied him. All his rough movements, his hunched posture. The way his beady eyes darted at every sound, even though there was nothing left here but wind and ghosts. 

He was worn down to the bone. Feral, almost. A man long forgotten by whatever gods this world once prayed to. 

But not by her. 

She married her eyes slightly, the faint glow behind them steady.

This one.

He would be the first she saved... or so she thought.