The Angel of the Sixth Dawn
When the first light of morning touched the city of Arven, a young painter named Mira was always awake before the sun. She lived in a small attic room that smelled of turpentine and dreams. Her canvases leaned against the walls, filled with the same face again and again, a man with pale eyes and wings of silver mist.
She had never met him. Yet she remembered him.
Every night she dreamed of standing on a bridge made of light, while he stood on the other side, smiling at her as dawn broke. She could never reach him before the light swallowed them both.
Her friends laughed when she spoke of him. They said artists always fell in love with their own imagination. Mira laughed too, but every morning her heart ached, as if she had lost someone real.
One day, as the sun hid behind heavy clouds, she walked to the old cathedral that stood at the edge of the city. She often painted there because of the way light filtered through the stained glass. The silence felt sacred.
When she entered, she heard a sound like feathers brushing against stone. She looked up, and there he was.
He stood before the altar, tall and still, his wings folded like light caught in air. His eyes were the same as in her paintings, pale and endless.
“You found me,” he said softly.
Mira could not speak. The brush she held fell from her hand.
“You are real,” she whispered.
“I was not supposed to be,” he said. “But you kept painting me into this world.”
He stepped closer, and the air grew warm. She could smell rain and something that reminded her of stars.
“Who are you?” she asked.
He smiled. “I am the angel who watches the sixth dawn. My name is Cael. I was sent to guide souls lost between night and morning. But one day I saw you dreaming, and I forgot my duty. I watched your life through your window, through your laughter, through your tears. I should have left, but I stayed.”
She took a step forward. “Then why do I remember you?”
“Because your soul called to mine,” he said. “In every lifetime, we meet as the light changes. You forget, and I remember.”
Mira felt tears rise in her eyes. “If that is true, why do you look so sad?”
“Because the dawn is near,” he said. “And when the sun rises, I must return. Angels cannot live beneath full light. It burns the memory of who we were.”
She shook her head. “Then stay in the shadow with me.”
He reached out and touched her hand. His fingers felt real, warm, trembling. “If I stay, you will forget me again. Time will erase me to protect you. You will paint, but my face will fade from your art, and you will not know why you cry when morning comes.”
“Then let me remember,” she said.
He looked at her, his eyes full of light and sorrow. “You cannot. Mortals are not built to hold the memory of heaven.”
The bells of the cathedral began to ring. Light broke through the stained glass, scattering color across the floor. His wings unfurled, each feather catching the glow like shards of dawn.
She reached for him. “Cael, please.”
He smiled one last time. “Paint me in your next dawn, Mira. And I will find you again.”
Then the light consumed him.
When it faded, the cathedral was empty. Only the scent of rain and sunlight remained. Mira fell to her knees, her heart both whole and broken.
Days passed. Weeks. She painted endlessly, searching for the memory that fluttered just beyond reach. The man with the wings had vanished from her mind, but her heart still ached each morning when the first light touched her skin.
One dawn, as she painted the horizon, her brush moved without thought. Lines formed, soft and sure. When she stepped back, she gasped.
It was him.
The man from her dreams, standing on a bridge of light, smiling as dawn broke.
Outside, the city bells rang again, the same sound as that morning in the cathedral. The sunlight shone through her window, and for an instant she saw feathers drifting through the air, vanishing before they touched the floor.
She smiled, tears slipping down her cheeks.
Somewhere beyond the rising sun, an angel watched the sixth dawn and whispered her name.