Wars between the celestial and the demonic had always existed. But humans have never been participants. They were always underfoot. Collateral. Always seen as the party to protect, to tempt, to use. A mortal creation that turned on a different axis, one that would never understand the supernatural.

They would never be equals.

[His smile is light.]

Who's to say why that human decided what he did, though. He never touched the king, after all. Never the people. When his words spurred anger, he merely responded to the power of war in kind with his own. A stalemate of one against hundreds of thousands.

On the eighth day, he vanished. And in the place where he'd held his ground, the entire kingdom burst into bloom.