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Chapter 1

The Raziq were co

The energy of their approach was very distant, but it blasted heat and thunder acrossBut even worse was the sheer and utter depth of rage that accory that we’d deceived them, but thisThis was murderous

Up until now, the Raziq had used minor deh their version of talk generally involved some kind of torture This ti There would be only death and destruction

And they would take out everyone—and everything—around us in the process

It was a horrendous prospect given that ere still at the Brindle, a place that not only held aeons of witch knowledge but was also home to at least two dozen witches

I reached for ht in this place of peace, I still felt safer with Aht in ed; then I realized I’d left her behind, a the ruins of our home In the aftermath of my father’s destruction, I’d been desperate to see whether Mirri—who’d been under a death sentence, thanks to Father’s iven Aht

“We cannot stay here” The fah the fear that had been holding me captive

My gaze uardian butI was now linked to forever in both life and afterlife When I died, I would become what he was—a Mijai, a reaper warrior tasked not only with protecting the gates to heaven and hell, but also with hunting down the deate to cause havoc here on Earth

Of course, reapers weren’t actually flesh beings—although they could certainly attain that fory who lived on the gray fields, the area that divided Earth from heaven and hell While I was part olf and therefore flesh, I was also part Aedh The Aedh were energy beings who at one time lived on the fields as the reapers had, and also had been the traditional guardians of the gates My father had been one of the Raziq—a group of rebel Aedh ere responsible for both the destruction of the Aedh and the creation of the three keys to the gates—and he was also the reason the keys were currently lost

Or rather, only one key was still lost I’d found the first two, but both had been stolen from under my nose by the dark sorceress who’d subsequently opened two of hell’s three gates

Things hadn’t quite gone according to plan for her when she’d opened the second one, however, because she’d been captured by de everything crossed that that was exactly where she’d re us of late, it was an even-money bet she wouldn’t

“Risa,” Azriel repeated when I didn’t immediately answer him “We must not stay here”

“I know”

But where the hell e going to go that was safe from the wrath of the Raziq? There was nowhere safe Maybe not even hell itself—not that I particularly wanted to go there