The convoy left at dawn.
Not that dawn meant anything anymore. The sky was the same grey it had been for weeks, cracked and bleeding light that didn't warm anything it touched. But the healers needed supplies. The fractures needed anchors. The runners needed to move before the next collapse.
Twelve gods. Four angels. A cart of supplies that had taken days to gather.
No one expected an attack.
That was the mistake.
Azrael had been waiting. Not at the fracture. Not at the camp. Somewhere in between. A stretch of white plain where the shadows pooled too thick and the light from the cracks didn't reach.
The ambush was brutal.
Not because it was complicated. Because it was simple. The rogue angels fell on the convoy like wolves on a herd. No warning. No demand for surrender. Just blades and fire and the terrible efficiency of beings who had stopped caring about anything but vengeance.
The first god died before he knew he was under attack.
The second died reaching for his weapon.
