Chapter 23 · Kael Never Gave the Order

The blade was already falling.

"Kael!"

Seraph didn't think. She grabbed his arm and shoved, and fire tore out of her palm before her brain caught up with her hand. Steel met flame with a shriek that was worse than any scream she'd heard in seventeen deaths.

Kael staggered clear of the arc, sword half out of its sheath, already reading the room, already reading her.

"Behind me. Now."

"He was going to put that through your back—"

"I know what he was going to do." His voice didn't shake. Hers did.

The masked man recovered fast. Too fast. He came in low, blade angled for Kael's ribs, and Kael caught it on his own steel with a crack that rattled up Seraph's teeth.

"Who sent you?" Kael said, pressing forward, boots braced on the cracked stone.

The man didn't answer. He never answered, in any loop where she'd seen a blade move like that. He fought like his life was a debt somebody else was collecting.

Seraph's hand was still burning. Not a figure of speech —