Rain drummed heavily on the shattered roofs, military vehicles, and the endless sea of corpses of winged creatures spreading across the ruined street of the Nurse's Estate.
Merlin stood beside the broken gate, unmoving. His white hair lay flat against his forehead. Water streamed from the edge of his jaw and rolled down the collar of his black coat.
There, beneath the boiling darkness of the clouds, Kai hovered like a god no scripture had seen.
The purple glow waving around him spread through the rain in rings, while the silver sword in his hand glittered like a shard of a fallen star.
Around Merlin, soldiers stood frozen. Some had their rifles raised, others had theirs lowered.
Even the groans of the wounded and the cries of men calling for medics seemed to lose their urgency with every passing minute.
'Who are you?' Merlin whispered in the silence of his own mind, while his heart beat in a strange unrest he had not felt in years.
