ascension.

"Good job letting the bishop die."

Those were the first words Titus Brightwell spoke to his sister a month after they'd last seen each other.

Lynn would never claim to have a close relationship with her brother—chiefly thanks to the competitive, perfectionist nature with which their parents had raised them—but the siblings had always maintained some kind of courtesy as adults. Call it a begrudging respect for the other—one sibling that had followed the path of the cloth to wield considerable power as Bishop of North Sidralis; the other, sacrificing her very flesh to be reforged as a living weapon of the Flame.

Yet now, there was nothing but cold disdain in Titus' eyes.

Her older brother leaned against the far side of the room, glaring at everyone, his aura crackling with an anger that had nothing to do with the Angel.