"Talk to me, human. Can you talk?"

I haven't moved from the floor in several minutes. Thea finally grew bored of beating me and left. Saffron won't offer me that privilege. My arms tremble as I try to push myself up from the floor, I spit blood on the ground as tears sting my eyes. I'm not sure if anything is broken but the pain from my ribs is making it hard to breathe. I twist myself onto my backside as Saffron enters the cage. Her hand is outstretched as she walks towards me, I cower back into the wall.

"Relax, I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to test something." She places her hand to my shoulder and then jumps back several feet like I've electrocuted her, her lips snarl at me. "What are you?"

I push my knees to my chest. Thea had that same reaction every time she touched me for too long, I think that's why she left. Though not before inflicting beating after beating upon me. My body is sore and bruised, I'm surprised I'm still conscious. Saffron shakes her hands and clears her throat. She kneels down in front of me, looking over me with a deep sigh.

"I really wanted to show him your disguise but it doesn't look like that will be possible," she says. "I'll have to take you to him instead."

I want to see him more than anything but I know what she means. She wants to kill me in front of him. I am merely the collateral in their war and killing me would not only hurt him but it'd also weaken him.

"It's not personal," she says. "I just never imagined he'd ever care for something this much. The others said that he's owned you for months, he had his chance to become the most powerful being in the universe and he gave it up just to lose you anyway. It's tragic really."

I clench my jaw. "What have you done to him?"

"You'll find out soon. I'm going to reunite you. That's what you want, isn't it?"

"No."

She grins, her eyes sparkling with amusement. "Do not worry, I won't torture you. It'll be quick and painless. I do not like hearing humans scream, it is annoying. However, I don't care about your soul becoming depressed anymore." She tightens her hands around my throat and pulls me up, slamming me against the wall. She clenches on her teeth as something inside of me makes her unable to hold me for long. She releases me and I fall back to the ground. "No specimen has ever been able to do that before. It is a first for me."

I rub my throat as I struggle to breathe. I look up to see her distancing herself, her teenage gaze locked on me with curiosity.

"Humans are so weak," she mutters. "It baffles me that my kind even bother to paralyze you at all. I guess they find the screams annoying too."

I sit against the wall, cradling my knees back to my chest. Something strange keeps demanding my attention from the corner of the cell, at first I think I am imagining it, that I am hallucinating from all the punches to my face, but the shine from something metal is becoming brighter.

"Are you ready to go?" she says. "It's time for your reunion."

"You said I would be bid on at the end of the week."

Saffron laughs. "That was just to get them off my back. They are still loyal to the King, give them the chance of a completed soul and they'll fall in line easily. But once you are dead and the King is weakened they will have no choice but to conform and accept me. And if they don't, well, I'll just kill them." Saffron observes me closely, trying to look for a way to grab me that won't cause her any suffering. "How should I do this?"

I don't understand what's happening to me. I am still aware that Saffron is before me, that my life is in very real danger, but my body is beginning to get heavier as though I'm being shaken. Something opens inside my mind and it distracts me with a beautiful and panicked familiarity.

Take it, Aurora, Cain's voice says.

I gasp, his voice is as real as my own thoughts. I don't know what he's talking about, my mind is spinning and I rub my temples to try and balance myself.

"Maybe I should put a rope around your throat and drag you," she says, rubbing her chin. "Would that snap your neck? I'm unsure. Cain, as you call him, put something around my throat once. He dragged me too. I'd like for him to see that. Do you understand the concept of time, Aurora?"

Stop being afraid, his voice says. Fight!

I remove my hands and meet her green eyes.

"In a human language, I have been gone for three centuries, they measure that by the planets. The comparison is complicated to explain but I was not on that planet for three centuries. I was imprisoned for close to a thousand years. It felt like it would never end. Time there was different. It was longer than this. Does that make sense? Imagine a thousand years locked inside something far smaller than this." She lifts her head to look around and I use her distraction to bend down and edge closer to the corner. "Wouldn't you want to seek revenge? How long do you think Cain will have until he starves to death? I hope it's a thousand years."

She flicks her eyes back down to me and I pause, my movements have caught her attention and she trails her eyes over to the corner.

"What is that?" she says

Now!

The pain I feel when I move is instant. It captivates my whole body. The adrenaline makes me stand, it pushes me into a frantic run to the corner where a small and mysterious blade waits for me. I don't know where the blade came from or what placed it there but holding it feels right. Like it was made for me. Saffron pursues me and remains inches behind me, I turn and plunge the blade into her stomach. It slides through her thick skin like butter, I didn't even have to add extra pressure.

I pull it out as she tenses, she backs up to a wall as she clutches the wound and then she falls to her knees. She chokes on her words, her eyes meeting mine with fury. She snarls but she cannot move.

I stand there for a few seconds, the blade tight in my hand as I fight between going for her heart or taking my escape. Her hand covers her chest instantly, blocking me from attempting it. She continues choking, something infecting her body that has her immobilized.

Run!

I take my escape through the cage door. I don't have time to think about how Cain can enter my mind or see through my eyes. I'm not even sure if it is Cain but something is helping me. I run up to the ground floor of the palace, not stopping until I reach the door at the back of the kitchen. I open it and I rush out onto the deck, my hands falling to my mouth to contain the scream from my lips as I look upon the dozens of piles of bodies on the lawn. Their faces are almost grey, the life drained from each of them. I head down the steps and I turn a sharp right, trying to ignore the image of Bella's wide-open eyes as her body is the closest to me.

I hold a hand to my aching ribs, coming to a sharp stop as the creatures fall to the ground and form an intimidating circle around me. I keep the blade at my side, narrowing my eyes as I look at each of them. They exchange looks with each other; their stares locked on to my hand. They eventually move aside, allowing a gap for me to escape through. I run towards the hill in the distance.

"Stop her!" a voice screams.

I look over my shoulder to see Saffron charging across the lawn, she stabs several of them in the heart as she moves. She doesn't release her wings, not even as a precaution. She continues running after me while the remaining guards take to the sky to pursue me. Blake drops in front of me, almost making me fall over as I stop.

"Keep running," he says. "I'll hold them off."

"No," I whisper, watching as he charges right by me.

I hear the clash of bodies from above me. Saffron still can't release her wings, though I can see her trying to. She gets one wing out but it bends and depletes before it snaps back to her shoulder. I gasp as hundreds of creatures release themselves from the roof, they follow her commands because they have no choice. She'll kill them if they don't.

I carry on running across the field until one creature reaches me and lifts me from the ground by the back of my shirt. The moment his fingers touch my skin I hear him hiss and he drops me. I meet the ground forcefully, spitting onto the grass as I attempt to push myself up. The other creatures circle me. Blake grabs one by his arm and swings him across the field and releases him in the distance, his body breaks an entire tree in half. I lose sight of him as a group of creatures drag him higher up.

Saffron limps her way across the field. She's becoming too weak to walk. She stops suddenly and twists her head towards the enormous building a few miles away.

"No," I say.

I push myself into a run again. Saffron clings onto a creature's shoulder and he flies her across the field.

"No!" I scream.

No matter how fast I try and run towards them, I will never make it in time. I cry out as Saffron and the creature break through the roof of the nannery. I fall to my knees as the creatures surround me. It's over. I'm trapped. I'm praying that the children are okay but I know that they're not. I know she will go for them first because their souls are purer. Jase is in there, and little Cindy. My tears keep falling but I remain silent, rocking on my knees as Saffron and the creature walk out of the building. Her wings unfurl from her shoulders, they are bigger than Cain's, a magnificent blend of blue and grey that block the view of the nannery. She drags a child with her as a crowd of panicked humans rush out from the building.

She picks the child up and jumps across the distance, landing a few feet in front of me. The little girl is crying with terror, she can't be older than four or five. Saffron keeps a tight grip around the girl's shoulder.

"I don't know what the hell that thing is or where you got it from but I want it, now." She flicks her fingers at the ground. "You have four seconds."

"And you'll let the girl go?"

"I will let her go."

I look at the blade in my hand and I throw it towards her, it lands on the ground halfway between us. She turns her head towards one of the guards and flicks her head back to the blade. She observes closely as the guard walks towards the blade and hesitantly picks it up. When nothing happens to him, she becomes satisfied and looks back to me.

"Why would our creators be helping you?" she demands.

I keep my attention on the girl in her grasp. "You said you'd let her go."

"Yes, I did."

Saffron grips the girl's shirt and flicks her wrist. She keeps her attention on me the entire time as the girl's body is hurled through the air sideways. I watch as the child is thrown so powerfully and so far that I lose sight of her beyond the hill.

"You are evil!" I cry.

Saffron laughs at the phrase, humming quietly to herself with amusement.

"And you wonder why Cain locked you away to starve, you deserved everything he did to you! He didn't even give you a second thought, none of them did. They left you there because they were glad to finally be rid of you!"

Saffron's eyes narrow, her lips purse angrily and she starts to charge for me. I take a deep breath as I await my fate. Her hand is reached out to swing at me, as though she's about to take my head off. I don't react. I show her no fear. She stops suddenly as something grabs her hand, we both look at Marina at the same time before Marina tightens her entire hand around Saffron's arm and throws her a mile across the field.

I follow the sight of Saffron's body as she rolls across the ground. I see the little girl that I feared was dead run into the arms of several humans at the building entrance. Marina smiles at me and then turns her back to me. I am pulled from the ground so fast that I can't comprehend it. I'm suddenly in the air as strong arms hold me, my feet are planted in the woods beside the hill. I close my eyes for a moment as I adjust to the transition.

I open my eyes with a shaky breath, meeting Cain's greenly-blue gaze. I cry out and wrap my arms around his shoulders, my body trembling against his. His hands pat against my hair and then he separates us slowly, his fingers sweeping across my cheeks as he observes my bruised face. He looks no different to when I last saw him, he's still wearing the same clothes only they're torn and dirty like he's been dragged over something rough.

"She has the blade," I say. "I tried to stop her, I tried."

"Stay here," he says.

He turns back to the clearing, stopping abruptly as Thea lands right in front of him. She meets my eyes over his shoulder and I swallow fearfully.

"My King, I stand with you. What are your orders?"

"She's with Saffron," I say, trembling backwards.

Cain looks between us, the patience that I have come to love about him is gone. Thea attempts to plea but Cain grips her throat and pushes her against a tree. His hand punches into her chest and he rips out her heart with one fast movement. He holds it in his hand, her eyes widen with terror as she sees him holding it. Thea's body bursts into lights seconds later, her heart along with it. Cain looks just as surprised as I am, he looks down at his hand, becoming lost in his new power.

"How did you do that?" I say.

Cain cranks his neck and stares at me for a moment, he's so angry that I don't know if I can calm him, I don't know if it's even safe to be around him. I back up to the tree but he doesn't take a step towards me, he turns around, saying one final thing before he charges back into the field.

"I don't need the blade."