zophiel does not believe the war will end.
she has no frame of reference for it, can’t remember a heaven not scored by shelling and smelling of the pyre. “before the war” is nothing but a story her brothers tell each other with their bellies deep in mud, a sweet lie to warm their wings—this thing that began must have an ending, we need only live to see it.
(her wings smelled of iron before she knew what they were for; the harps were long ago unstrung, sword-calloused hands not knowing how to hold them. there is no before, not for her, and not after)
heaven is battlelines and mud, and hell is fire; all else is vacuum, and darkness, but zophiel survives, and she is glad, glad, glad.
