“Death was always needed,” he whispered to the empty ruins, his voice carrying across stones that had witnessed the separation of realms. “Everyone requires ending eventually. Butlove? Love is temporary, soft, mortal. What if I become human and discover I'm not worth loving without cosmic power?”
The fear cut deeper than any weapon could have—that Damian's fascination stemmed from his otherworldly nature rather than his essential self. That the moment he became ordinary, become just another brief life in an endless sea of them, the healer would lose interest and move on to someone more worthy of his remarkable heart.
“He won't want me if I fall completely,” Cael said aloud, the words tasting of ash and terror. “Who could love Death stripped of its terrible beauty? Who could want someone who used to be cosmic but became nothing special?”
The wind through the ruins carried an answer that might have been memory or prophecy, words spoken in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Damian's: “He never wanted your power. He wanted your presence. He saw you, not your function.”
As the vision faded and the ruins returned to their usual silence, the truth settled into Cael's transformed consciousness like a revelation. Damian hadn't fallen in love with a cosmic entity—he'd fallen in love with the person emerging from beneath cosmic duty.
Every moment of gentleness, every choice to stay rather than reap, every tear shed for mortal pain—those were the qualities that had captured Damian's heart. The healer had seen past the terrible beauty of cosmic function to the loneliness underneath, had recognized someone learning to be real beneath layers of divine programming.
“You stupid, blind bastard,” Cael said to himself with something approaching affection. “He's been telling you all along.”
Returning to Varos under moonlight, Cael moved through the city with unprecedented solidity. His footsteps echoed on cobblestones with satisfying weight, his breath created clouds in the cold air that dispersed naturally rather than with cosmic fanfare, and shadows fell from his form like they would from any other physical being.
He inhaled deeply, and for the first time noticed the scent of baking bread and cold stone, the distant sound of someone laughing in a nearby alley. Each sensation felt like a promise, proof that existence could be measured in small wonders rather than cosmic significance.
The pull of the Threads had grown so quiet it was barely audible, like a storm finally fading into distant memory. Whatever power had once demanded his cosmic service was learning to function without him, adapting to his absence with the ruthless practicality of universal law.
He should have felt bereft at the loss. Instead, Cael found himself walking lighter, breathing easier, existing with a freedom he'd never known was possible.
He found Damian asleep in his clinic, exhausted from another day of healing others while neglecting his own wounds. The healer was curled in his chair again—a habit that spoke of someone too dedicated to his work to prioritize his own comfort. His face in sleep was peaceful, unmarked by the chronic pain and accumulated sorrow that defined his waking hours.
The sight stopped Cael completely. Here was the man who had given everything and asked for so little, who had seen divinity and chosen to love the humanity emerging beneath it. In this moment, watching the steady rise and fall of Damian'schest, Cael finally understood what mortals meant when they spoke of home.
Home wasn't a place. It was a person who made existence feel like more than mere function.
Cael knelt beside Damian, feeling the prickle of fatigue in his knees, the urge to rest his head beside another's warmth. How ordinary. How perfect. For the first time since his transformation had begun, he allowed himself to fully materialize without reservation or exit strategy.
He almost reached out to wake Damian, then stopped, content to simply watch. The comfort of another's presence calmed something restless in his transforming soul, made the ache of becoming mortal feel like privilege rather than loss.
With fingers that trembled with newfound mortality, he brushed wayward hair from Damian's face. The simple gesture felt like prayer made physical, worship offered to someone who would never demand it but deserved it more than any cosmic entity ever had.
“You beautiful, stubborn fool,” he whispered, his voice rough with emotions that had no cosmic equivalent. “You saw something worth saving in Death itself. How am I supposed to live up to that kind of faith?”
Looking down at the man who had chosen to love the most unlikely being in existence, Cael spoke a vow that reverberated through both realms: “I will burn the world before I let it take this from me. I will rewrite cosmic law, challenge elder gods, unmake reality itself—whatever it takes to keep you safe, to earn the right to stay beside you.”
The words tasted of rebellion and devotion in equal measure, a promise that sealed his transformation more thoroughly than any cosmic ritual ever could.
He left before dawn, but this time his departure carried no uncertainty. The choice had been made—not in a moment ofpassion or cosmic emergency, but in the quiet contemplation of what love actually meant. He walked away knowing he would return, knowing he would fight, knowing he would choose Damian over duty every time the choice presented itself.
As the first light touched Varos, painting the city's obsidian spires with gold, Cael felt his cosmic senses begin to dim, each one fading like a star at dawn. He could no longer hear the song of the Threads or taste the weight of time in the air. The change should have been traumatic, like losing vital parts of himself. Instead, it felt like chains slipping from his shoulders, as if he were finally stepping out of a prison he’d never realized was confining him.
In the distant corners of the city, something vast and ancient turned its attention toward him, the first stirrings of cosmic wrath at his rebellion. But for the first time in his existence, Cael did not care who witnessed his defiance.
He was becoming mortal, vulnerable, temporary—and for the first time in his existence, he smiled with genuine joy rather than cosmic irony.
“Hello, mortality,” he said to the sunrise, his voice carrying wonder and terror and absolute conviction. “Let's see what we can build together.”
In the distance, he could feel Damian beginning to stir, consciousness returning with the dawn. Soon they would face whatever forces were gathering against them, would discover whether love really could triumph over cosmic law.
But for now, in the space between night and day, Cael allowed himself to exist as what he was becoming—someone who had chosen love over everything else, someone who had found that the cost of wanting was worth paying.
Someone who was finally, truly alive.
Chapter 17
What I Cannot Heal
