Chapter 1
There was an old law in the celestial kingdom: angels were forbidden to love.
They could guard mortals, fight demons, and carry the wishes of the dying into the stars—but their hearts belonged only to the heavens.
Caelan had obeyed for three hundred years.
Then he met Lucien.
Lucien was everything Caelan was not—reckless, laughing, silver-haired and endlessly curious about the mortal world. He stole peaches from palace gardens, danced on cathedral rooftops and once disappeared for an entire night simply because he wanted to discover where the moon went at dawn.
Caelan was supposed to keep him out of trouble.
Instead, he fell hopelessly in love with him.
For years they hid their affection beneath glances and accidental touches, meeting secretly among the abandoned towers beyond Heaven’s gates.
Then came the Night of the Golden Moon.
Lucien had been sentenced to exile for refusing an order that would have cost innocent mortal lives. At midnight, his wings would be taken and he would fall alone into the world below.
Caelan found him standing before the celestial gates, pretending he wasn’t afraid.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Lucien whispered.
“I know.”
“They’ll take your wings too.”
“I know.”
“You’ll never be allowed home.”
Caelan smiled and drew him into his arms.
“Lucien… you are my home.”
For once, Lucien had no clever reply.
He simply kissed him.
Above them, the great moon blazed gold, and Caelan spread his black wings around them both as Heaven’s bells began to toll.
They fell together before the final bell could sound.
But the strangest thing happened.
They never reached the earth.
The moon caught them.
And somewhere beyond the stars, where no celestial law could follow, Caelan and Lucien built a little kingdom of their own—one with only a single commandment:
Love bravely, and never apologise for choosing it.
