Something crashed into Riv, sent her sprawling to the ground. She rolled, tried to stand, but only made it to all fours, the world a whirling piece of flotsam in a chaotic sea. She blinked, desperate for the spinning to stop, searching for who or what had slammed into her.

It was the cowled figure she’d glimpsed as she entered the chamber, striding now to Israfil and Kol. It stopped before them both, threw off its cowl and cloak, revealing a man with two huge wounds upon his back, scabbed, weeping blood and pus.

A Ben-Elim with his wings taken.

Adonai.

He just stared at Israfil, spoke no words. And then he was drawing a sword and plunging it into the Lord Protector’s chest.

Riv screamed.

This cannot be happening!

Somehow she was on her feet, eyes fixed upon Kol, all else a peripheral blur, anger, no, a white-hot rage at Israfil’s murder the only thing keeping her upright and conscious. She swung her blade at Kol. He saw, a flicker of surprise as he twisted, blocked with his knife, sending her blow wide.

‘Stop,’ he said to her. ‘It is over, Israfil is dead, there is no more to fear.’

‘Murderer, Lore-breaker,’ she yelled, stabbing her short-sword at Kol’s throat. He swayed, sidestepping her.

‘Don’t do this, Riv,’ he said. ‘You are distraught, fevered, you do not mean this, and I do not wish to kill you. Great things are ahead, and you can be part of them.’

She snarled and chopped at his ribs; this time he was too slow, her blade slicing through feathers, its tip grazing a red line across Kol’s shoulder as he leaped away.

He looked at the blood leaking from his wound, glared at her.

‘I’m warning you, girl, you can be as dead as Israfil if you wish.’

He has changed everything, changed our world, broken every codex of the Lore, for his own selfish desire and to save his skin.

She lunged at him, a short, powerful stab straight at Kol’s heart.

He deflected her blade with his knife, sent it swinging wide, and backhanded her with a fist, lifting her from the ground, sending her spinning, weightless for a few heartbeats, then slamming back down to earth again. She rolled onto her back, felt her consciousness flutter away on black wings, tried desperately to cling to it, saw Kol stride after her, knife in his hand.

‘So be it,’ Kol snarled at her. ‘There are plenty more where you came from.’