Heaven was quiet.
Not in the way it had been after Samael's fall—where grief hung behind ceremony—but a deeper quiet, like the moment before a thunderclap. A pause held too long.
Gabriel ascended the highest spire, where the stars looked inward and time bent like breath in cold air. The place where Yahweh often went when he wished to be left alone.
Gabriel had no invitation.
He came anyway.
The chamber was empty in the way only divine spaces could be: still, endless, luminous, undefined by size or substance. Yahweh stood at its center, not seated on a throne but suspended in stillness, surrounded by soft-burning halos and drifting fragments of light that spoke no words but radiated intent.
He did not turn when Gabriel entered.
But he knew.
"You've come to speak of your brother," Yahweh said.
Gabriel stopped walking. "Which one?"
A pause.
Then, gently: "Lucifer."
Gabriel swallowed.
"He's been to the Garden."
Yahweh didn't speak.
"He didn't touch them," Gabriel added. "But he's watching. Waiting. Something's coming."
Yahweh finally turned, though his face remained only partly visible—less a face and more an impression of will made radiant.
"You are afraid."
Gabriel laughed, but it broke halfway through. "Is that what you think this is? Fear?"
"You stood at the gate," Yahweh said. "And you did not strike him."
Gabriel's hands curled into fists. "Because he's not my enemy."
"Then who is?"
Gabriel took a long breath.
"I don't know."
He stepped forward, wings drawn tight behind him.
"You knew this would happen," he said. "You knew he would fall. You knew he would visit the Garden. And you let it unfold. Like a… play."
"Creation is not a performance."
Gabriel's eyes narrowed. "Isn't it? The way you orchestrate beginnings, endings, betrayals... The way you hide behind silence while we tear each other apart in your name?"
Yahweh's radiance dimmed slightly.
"Your doubt burns bright," He said.
"Then answer me." Gabriel's voice shook. "Why them? Why create something so fragile—so corruptible—and place it in the center of everything we bled for?"
Yahweh turned back to the stars. "Because fragility invites choice. And choice reveals truth."
"They don't even know what truth is!" Gabriel shouted. "And Lucifer will feed them his version before they ever hear yours."
Yahweh remained still. "Would you rather they never hear at all?"
Gabriel flinched.
And then, finally, he asked the question that had been rotting inside him since the Garden's first breath:
"Did you make them to replace us?"
The silence that followed stretched across the stars.
Then—
"I made them to surpass you."
Gabriel staggered back like he'd been struck.
Yahweh didn't apologize.
Didn't soften.
He never did.
"They will fall," Gabriel whispered. "You know they will."
"Yes."
"And you're going to let it happen."
"Yes."
Gabriel shook his head, voice hoarse.
"Then what's the point?"
"To rise," Yahweh said.
Gabriel closed his eyes.
"You talk about rising like it's noble. But you never stayed to help any of us stand."
He turned to leave.
But Yahweh spoke one last time:
"Would you stop them, Gabriel? If you could?"
The archangel hesitated.
"…No."
Yahweh's light pulsed gently.
"Then you understand more than you admit."
Gabriel left without another word.
No wingbeats.
No final plea.
Just a slow, aching descent from a place too bright for honesty.
He looked down at the world below.
The trees.
The rivers.
The man and woman who had no idea what waited.
And he whispered to himself—not as a soldier, not as a messenger.
But as a brother.
"Forgive me."