“You’re right. I am flesh. I am flawed. I am selfish, but I am also grace.” I spat out a mouthful of blood, and from the rage and the ruin, I rose onto my feet. “I have heavenly fire in my blood. I have a human soul, and that is something you will never have.”

The archangel drew back.

“That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why you hate God. That’s why you want to destroy everything. It’s not to make it better. It’s not to end suffering, you lunatic. All of this is because you don’t have a soul.” I laughed, stumbling backward, summoning my grace. It sputtered and then arrived, the handle almost too heavy for me to hold. “You’re a walking cliché, and you dare to insult the aspirations of humans?”

“You know nothing.” He stalked forward, and I saw Roth sit up in his human form. Sulien pushed off the wall.

“You forgot to add ‘Jon Snow’ at the end of that statement.”

He halted, head cocked. “What?”

I swung, aiming for the largest part of him. My grace could and would kill him. I would end this, because it was my duty.

Gabriel grabbed my right arm just above my elbow and twisted. The crack was so sudden, so shocking, that there was a brief second where I felt nothing. And then I screamed. The red-hot shock of pain fried my senses. I lost my grace. The sword collapsed in on itself as I tried to breathe through the pain.

His foot connected with my shin, snapping the bone there, and I couldn’t even scream as I hit the ground on one knee, couldn’t even breathe around the fire that seemed to engulf my entire leg. He gripped me by the scruff of my neck and lifted me. I clutched at his arm with my good hand and kicked out as I saw Sulien grab Roth.

It happened in a matter of heartbeats. Seconds. Brutal, unending seconds when I realized I couldn’t defeat an archangel. This was never a battle I could win, and in the distant part of my mind that functioned above the pain, I wondered if my father had known that and sent me out for the slaughter.

Roth would die.

So would Cayman.

I’d be taken, and the world as we knew it would end, and maybe my father and God didn’t care about what would happen. Their attempts to save humankind were half-assed if they’d thought I could do this, and maybe...maybe God had washed His proverbial hands of the whole mess.

If not, how did they think I could defeat an archangel?

Gabriel slammed me into the ground with the force of a fall from a building.

Bones shattered everywhere.

Legs.

Arms.

Ribs.