Bereft of his human, he was splayed out over the ground. One arm had been crushed; he cradled it to his chest and dragged himself with the other, legs limp behind him. And his head, his awful purple head, was flattened at the temple, crusted with dried blood, and still embedded with rocks and broken glass.
Falling again was almost worse the second time, because he knew of the agony that followed. Only a handful of seconds passed between the top of the minaret and the looming earth, but to Razgut it felt like an age. He was helpless to fight against the magic that bound him, even now, to Izîl.
Then, the impact.
Razgut knew Izîl had not survived as soon as he heard the sound of brittle ribs breaking against the stones. The other humans exclaimed in dismay, but Razgut had no such sympathy. Izîl had been broken inside even before the encounter with this fire-eyed seraph, and death was the last wish he could have been granted.
Only after this realization did Razgut think to feel his own pain; having been acknowledged, it swamped his body and mind, enough to make a thousand portals and more than enough to sustain the invisibility that he had cast, almost unconsciously, as he had landed.
Unable to be extricated, one arm was still wrapped around his mule - the body rapidly growing cold - and was more a mass of splinters than bones. His head burned at the temple on the side it had landed, soldered as it was with diamondlike shards of glass.
As if to mock Razgut's pain, the angel took flight from the minaret on glamoured wings. The twice-fallen seraph followed him with hungry eyes, and knew.
He held no hope that he would be brought home now. The fire-eyed seraph had made that clear, his perfect, mythic features echoing familiar disgust.
Only a wish could save him. Razgut had often pleaded that Izîl might procure one for him, despite knowing that the bruxis' bind could only be broken by a wish of the same magnitude. But now he was bereft - and free.
Razgut did not hope, but wished. For flight, for home, for forgiveness.
.
.
.
And, to that end, he needed the wish-daughter.