They expected me to give in, I think. To just fold up at the loss of Dad, at the shock of finding out he no longer wore the Reaper's mantle, that he was gone and Kael, that most despised of Death's angels, now sat on the throne of the Reaper.

Lilith warned me. She said I'd set a precedent. And so it would seem. He thought he could take Dad's place, did he? So odd, this floating, calm feeling amid an ocean of rising violence so powerful I felt swept up in it with a smile on my ...