The world returned in fragments.
Cold earth against his back.
The faint crackle of dying embers.
The metallic taste of blood in his mouth.
Azrael groaned.
“Still alive?” Quinn’s voice drifted through his mind, faint but steady.
“Unfortunately,” Azrael rasped, forcing one eye open. The sky above him was no longer a battlefield of gods it was calm. Clear.
Innocent, almost. As if it hadn’t tried to erase him from existence hours ago.
He lay there for a long moment, staring at the stars.
Then pain arrived.
Not sharp.
Not sudden.
But everywhere.
He sucked in a breath and immediately regretted it. “I feel like I got trampled by a mountain.”
“You sort of did,” Quinn replied dryly. “A storm-shaped mountain.”
Azrael pushed himself upright with a grunt. His arms trembled violently, ba
