He’d ejected it from his body, waking himself back to reality.

Today, it was golden lightning become wildfire that filled his veins. A power he could control. A power he could use and that didn’t use him. But—“No power is worth you, Elena-mine. I would give up immortality for a single mortal lifetime with you.”

“See you on the other side, Archangel.”

Her words were yet sounds being formed when he released every drop of the wildfire that was so bright and so beautiful and of them. And because his heart was more than a touch mortal, he told that energy to go to ground. Not to turn the sky into an inferno that erased hundreds of angels from existence, but to sear itself into the earth.

It was eerie, how he saw white owls in silhouette in the burn of light, watching with eyes of gold.

Cassandra! What do you see!

The future aligns. Paths are chosen. Death comes. A voice so very languid, falling into a deep Sleep. Such death, child of flames. Goddess of Nightmare. Wraith without a shadow. Rising into her Reign of Death.

Do you see her end? he asked as the wildfire light spread and spread and spread.

I see . . . Sleep heavy in every word.

Cassandra! The light was almost to the edge, Elena motionless in his arms. What do you see!

Wings of silver. Wings of blue. Mortal heart. Broken dreams. Shatter. Shatter. Shatter. A sundering. A grave. One last sigh of a being slipping into the Sleep of immortals. I see the end. I see . . .

Raphael came awake with the side of his face on dirt so hot it glowed, his rest prematurely ended, and his new heart not yet ready. It had, he realized, broken under the weight of the violent energy release and exposed the small mortal heart within. That small heart had exploded from the pressure.

Fragments swam in his blood, weaving their way through his entire system. A system devoid of wildfire. Devoid too of the golden lightning. Uncaring of the loss and of the agony in his chest, he opened his eyes . . . and looked into those of liquid silver.