The cleric's mouth slowly parted at the sight, not because of her presence alone, but because of what that presence represented, and although the sudden manifestation of her energy should have drawn his attention first, it was instead what his eyes began to recognize that made his mind falter.
His gaze lifted to her wings, and for a man who had devoted his entire life to the church, who had studied the depictions of angels and the hierarchy that stood beneath God, the resemblance was undeniable, yet what he saw did not align with anything he had been taught.
Her wings carried the structure of angels, but not those who remained within God's grace, because what he saw reflected something that had turned its back against it.
A fallen angel.
He could not determine how such a being had come to exist, because a fallen angel was not defined by a single origin, and while some had betrayed God outright, others had severed themselves from His essence by their own will.
