Lady Archangel Fey- Book Four Legacy

Chapter One 

Fault Lines

The Past

               Elowen leaned against the trunk of a great oak, bark rough beneath her palm. The pain eased just enough for her to draw a breath that did not shatter halfway through. It left her light‑headed anyway, her vision narrowing briefly as the world tilted and then steadied.

Fear slid in to take its place.

The forest was too quiet.

Not peaceful—never that—but watchful. The birds had scattered moments before, wings bursting from the canopy in a sudden rush, leaving behind a silence that pressed in on her ears. Even the leaves seemed to hesitate, branches knitting together overhead in a living arch as if the forest itself were holding its breath.

“It’s all right,” Seraphel said gently.

He was already moving, gathering fallen branches with quick, practiced motions, his presence deliberately small. 

His wings remained hidden, his light muted, as though even Heaven itself had learned to tread carefully here. He kept his movements slow, economical, careful not to draw attention to them—or to her.

Elowen watched him for a moment, forcing her breathing into something steadier.

At the angel who had chosen her.
At the man who had fled Heaven rather than let her be taken by the Fey.
At the fragile, impossible hope that had carried them this far.

Another contraction followed—stronger this time—and her fingers curled into the fabric at her side before she could stop them. The pain did not rise and fall so much as tighten, coiling inward with purpose.

She knew then.

There would be no more running.

“I need to sit,” she said, her voice thinner than she meant it to be.

Seraphel looked up at once, concern sharpening his features. He crossed the clearing in three long strides and caught her before her knees could give way, steadying her as he guided her down to the grass. His hands were warm. Solid. Real.

Thunder rolled at last, low and distant, as the first drops of rain struck the forest floor.

Elowen pressed one hand to her belly, the other braced behind her, heart hammering as the truth settled fully into place. There was no mistaking it now, no room left for denial.

She was in labour.

Whatever laws they had broken to get here—whatever gods still watched them—it no longer mattered. The child was coming. Tonight. Storm or no storm.

Seraphel knelt beside her, his movements careful, controlled, as if calm itself might keep the world from falling apart if he handled it gently enough.

“We’re close,” he said softly. “Ridge Point is only a day from here. You’ll be fine.”

Elowen nodded, though she knew it wasn’t true.

They weren’t going anywhere tomorrow.

The rain came harder, drenching the clearing in moments, flattening the fire Seraphel had coaxed into life. Wind tore through the canopy, branches swaying violently as lightning split the sky overhead. Thunder followed close behind, loud enough to shudder through the ground beneath her.

The pain sharpened, coming faster now, leaving no space to recover between waves. Elowen cried out, the sound torn from her chest before she could stop it. Her hands clawed at the earth, fingers digging into wet leaves and soil as her body strained against something that refused to move the way it should have.

Something was wrong.

She had never given birth before, but instinct—older than memory—screamed that this was not how it was meant to be. The rhythm was wrong. The pressure was wrong. Her body knew it with terrible certainty.

“Seraphel,” she gasped, fingers clutching at his sleeve. “The baby—”

He was already there, hands steady on her shoulders, voice low and fierce as he anchored her to the moment. “I’m here. You’re not alone.”

But even as he spoke, the storm surged around them, indifferent and immense, and Elowen felt a terrible certainty settle over her heart.

The world had already begun to choose.

White light tore through the clearing without warning.

It was not lightning.

Lightning did not linger.

The radiance cut cleanly through rain and shadow alike, holding the storm at bay as if it were nothing more than mist. Elowen’s vision blurred as she turned toward it, confusion giving way to dread that struck deeper than fear.

A figure stood where nothing had been moments before.

His presence was overwhelming—sharp, absolute. White wings framed him like judgment given form, untouched by wind or rain. A sword gleamed in his grasp, flawless and merciless.

“Fear not,” he said, his voice resonating through bone and blood alike. “I am Archangel Michael.”

Seraphel’s face drained of colour.

Recognition.

Horror.

Understanding.

Elowen did not feel the pain leave her body—but she felt herself slipping, consciousness dimming as darkness reached up to claim her. The world narrowed to sound and pressure and the sense of falling away from herself.

Seraphel caught her as she fell, calling her name, panic breaking through his control at last.

“No—”

The command came swift and final.

And when the storm resumed its roar, Elowen was already gone.

Darkness swept in as her body finally released her, consciousness slipping through her fingers like water. She felt Seraphel catch her, heard her name break from his mouth, and then there was nothing at all.

Seraphel barely felt her weight as she went limp in his arms.

“Elowen—” His voice fractured. “Elowen, please—”

The storm resumed its roar, thunder crashing overhead as rain surged back into the clearing, drenching them both. 

Panic rose sharp and suffocating in his chest as he searched her face for any sign—any response.

There was none.

“No,” he whispered.

Michael stepped closer.

The light followed him, gathering with purpose, casting long, stark shadows across the clearing. His expression did not change. Rain beaded and slid from his wings without leaving a mark.

“The child,” Michael said. “Remove the child.”

The words struck Seraphel like a physical blow.

For a heartbeat, he could not move. Could not breathe. Could not understand how the world had narrowed so completely, leaving him with an order he could not refuse and a choice he should never have been asked to make.

Thunder rolled again, closer this time.

With shaking hands, Seraphel laid Elowen gently back against the earth. He moved without thinking after that—muscle memory, instinct, terror guiding him as he followed Michael’s command. His hands knew what to do even as his mind refused to accept it.

Time lost meaning.

When it returned, it did so in fragments: the rain on his skin, cold and relentless; the sound of his own breath tearing in and out of his chest; the small, impossibly still weight in his hands.

Their daughter did not cry.

Despair closed around his heart, cold and absolute. The silence where a sound should have been pressed down harder than the storm ever could.

Before death could fully claim her, Michael stepped forward. He took the child from Seraphel’s arms with a motion that was swift but not unkind and raised her into the fading light.

“You will live,” Michael said.

The words did not echo.

They settled.

The light shifted at once—softening, warming, deepening from white into gold. It moved with intent now, circling the child, brushing her skin as gently as breath remembered rather than given.

Seraphel watched, scarcely daring to hope.

The baby’s chest shuddered.

Then she cried.

The sound cut through the storm, sharp and alive, and Seraphel gasped as if the world had struck him full in the chest. His knees nearly buckled as relief tore through him, raw and overwhelming. He staggered forward, tears blurring his vision, reaching—

Michael lowered the child into his arms.

Alive.

Warm.

Real.

Seraphel clutched her to his chest, laughter and sobs tangling in his throat as relief crashed over him in a wave so powerful it left him shaking.

“Elowen,” he breathed, turning desperately back toward her. “Elowen, she’s—”

“Stop.”

Michael’s voice was calm. Final.

Seraphel froze.

“She has left this life,” Michael said. “There is nothing you can do for her now.”

The words hollowed him out, leaving behind a space too vast to name.

Michael stepped back, the light already beginning to fade. “Take the child, care for her,” he continued.

Then he was gone.

The storm remained.

Seraphel sank to his knees beside Elowen, the baby’s cries soft against his chest as rain soaked into the earth around them. He brushed damp hair from Elowen’s face, memorising her features as if he could will them into permanence.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I tried. I swear I tried.”

The child stirred, her cry rising again—fragile, insistent, alive.

He looked down at her then, really looked, and felt his breath catch.

She was perfect.

Seraphel pressed his forehead to Elowen’s one last time, a farewell too small for the grief it carried. Then he gathered what little they had left, wrapped his coat tightly around himself and the child, and turned toward the path leading down from the forest.

Toward town.

Toward a world he no longer trusted.

He did not know—could not know—that the tiny life he carried against his heart had already shifted the balance of realms.

She had been meant to live that night.

And in doing so, she would change everything.

Forever.