A sudden, sharp jolt of electricity jolted Morgan, coursing through his body.
"Azrael..." Morgan repeated instinctively.
As he spoke it, a wave of nascent energy hummed through his veins.
Morgan stared at the man—at Azrael.
There was no godhood in the way the man carried himself, no sense of divinity.
Up close, standing beneath the dim, ancient stone of the ruined temple, he looked profoundly, excruciatingly tired.
He looked—mortal.
The immortality Morgan had witnessed in the visions wasn't a glorious ascension to a higher plane; instead, it was a relentless, grinding sentence.
Azrael.
He was a man who had been forced to watch the entire theatre of human history play out from the front row, over and over again, long after the play that was his life had lost its meaning.
"How long have you lived?" Morgan asked, the question slipping out before he could think about it.
Azrael looked down at his own calloused hands, turning them over slowly in the pale light.
