This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.

The celestial realm had known peace for ten thousand years, but on this day, the very foundations of heaven trembled. Seraphiel stood at the edge of the Crystal Observatory, her silver wings folded against her back as she watched the golden spires of the Eternal City flicker and dim. The Crown of Stars, source of all divine power, lay in fragments upon the Throne of Light, its crystalline pieces scattered like fallen tears across the marble floor.

"How could this have happened?" whispered Mikhael, his massive frame filling the doorway behind her. The warrior angel's bronze skin was marred with concern, his usually steady hands trembling as he gripped the hilt of his celestial blade. "The Crown has been whole since the dawn of creation. Who could possess the power to shatter it?"

Seraphiel turned from the window, her violet eyes reflecting the chaos that had erupted across the heavenly realm. Below them, streams of angels fled through the streets in confusion, their luminous forms creating rivers of light against the darkening sky. "Someone who has been planning this for millennia," she said, her voice barely audible above the distant wailing of the cosmic winds. "Someone who knew exactly where to strike."

The truth hung between them like a blade. In all the celestial realm, only three beings possessed knowledge of the Crown's vulnerabilities: the Almighty, who had vanished into the Deep Places beyond time itself, Lucarian the Morning Star, who had been cast down in ages past, and Raziel the Keeper of Secrets, who had mysteriously disappeared three days before the Crown's destruction.

A tremor ran through the floor beneath their feet, and the observatory's crystal walls sang with harmonic resonance.