I can't see anything and it's driving me crazy. I want to respect Cain's order but I'm also desperate to know what's going on. It's a bad idea to leave the trees but my curiosity is getting the better of me. The dynamics of the field are fascinating. Who do the guards fight for now? The one that holds the blade or has Cain's return made them all switch back? Whatever happens, a human wouldn't stand a chance around it. I walk for a while until a creature's body flies right in front of me, his large frame hitting several trees until he lands on the floor.

Blake lands at the edge of the trees, he looks at me for a moment before turning his attention to the creature in the woods. The creature absconds, fleeing out of sight.

"What are you doing?" Blake says. "The King needs to focus right now and creeping your way closer to Saffron isn't going to help that."

"I know," I say. "I just. . . I just had to see it. Is she looking for me?"

"Aurora, the moment she sees you, you're dead. Go back to the hill."

"I can't stay there."

I walk closer to him, ignoring his startled expression as I gently pass around his body. I take a long look at the clearing in the distance. Cain has his back to me but he is standing quite close while Saffron stands a few meters from him. The guards are divided, hundreds of them hover in the air as they split themselves between the two leaders. Cain seems to have more of them on his side, including Marina, but the King and Queen are the only ones with two feet on the ground.

The silence is nerve-wracking. Though I can tell that Blake wants to go and join Cain's army, he doesn't leave my side. The creatures are so still, like floating statues. They are waiting for orders like they cannot think for themselves. I'm not sure what happened to my blade, the last I saw of it a creature was picking it up from the ground, testing it for Saffron. I remember vaguely what he looked like and my eyes search the sky for a sign of his navy-blue jacket. I see him on Cain's side but I can't tell if he's holding it or if he's dropped it somewhere.

I tremble back into the woods as Saffron looks directly at me. Having her eyes on me is a feeling I cannot describe. Even from a mile away, she still has a presence that brings stultifying fear. Her young disguise would only fool those that haven't been close to her, her eyes are still as hollow and powerful as if a giant was looming over you. There are hundreds of creatures between herself and me, including Cain, and she's looking for an escape route. She isn't interested in him; she's only interested in me.

"Blake," I say. "How does the blade work?"

"What?" he says, startled by my question at such a strange timing.

"I know it takes their souls but that's only after they're dead, right?"

"Yes. Why?"

"You have to pierce their heart to kill them and take their souls," I say. "But I weakened her."

"What are you talking about?"

I'm talking to myself more than him. I stare at the creature that had my blade. Is it possible that I extracted souls from Saffron when I stabbed her? While she was still alive? Is that what that blade does—takes souls? She had to break into the nannery and consume more lives to be able to regain her strength, as though she was weaker because she was left without them.

"That creature," I say, pointing my finger into the air. "He has a blade and I need it back."

"What blade? Saffron has the blade, I saw it."

"I need you to trust me. Please."

Blake is confused, he looks back to the field just as something bright and explosive bursts through the air.

"Oh no," he mumbles. "Aurora, cover your eyes!"

It's too late. The light is the brightest thing I've ever seen. I am in awe of it. The creatures don't even move but with human eyes it is like gazing right up at the sun on the hottest day of the year. My eyes water and I fall to my knees, covering them tightly as the light continues to haunt my mind. I can't tell if I'm going to scream or not, the migraine is instant, I keep a firm hold of my head as I breathe into my knees.

"What is happening?" I demand.

"She released herself."

I know enough about the creatures to know what that means. Cain said they are immortal without their bodies. She has no heart to pierce, no heart to rip out. I muster enough courage to open my eyes and I squint through the blindness to see the giant shape of something other-worldly moving slowly through the sky. Saffron's true form finally breaks through the transition, she remains to be a white light covered in a mystical mist without a face or a physical vessel but her slithering, thin wings break out and almost reach the top of the world.

"No!" Marina screams. "Don't do it!"

Cain looks over his shoulder and stares right at me. I have no idea what's going on or why he's looking at me like he's sorry for something that hasn't happened yet. I start to see Cain's face change, his skin begins to move as though a worm is moving throughout his body. It's like he's melting. The last thing that I see is a spark of the same brightness before Blake grabs my arm and lifts us into the air.

We travel so fast that I close my eyes. I tighten my hands around his neck as he stops us in mid-air, he twists us in several directions as though he's searching for something.

"What are you doing?" I groan. "Put me down."

Blake ignores me and makes a dive for the ocean. "Take a deep breath."

I have no choice. I suck in my breath as he plummets us into the water. I thought the creatures were fast in the air but swimming is on another level. It's like I'm not even in the water at all, if it wasn't for the fact that I couldn't breathe then I'd be sure we were still in the air.

He brings us to the surface and I widen my eyes over his shoulder as I finally breathe. Something is following us. Something alien and bendy. It glides towards us on top of the surface, one of its long arms reaches out from its misty form and soars down the water like a wave.

"Blake!" I scream.

He tries to twist us out of its grasp but it catches his foot and pulls him under. I circle my arms as I try to stay afloat but the bruises are making it hard. My ribs ache and my body is becoming heavier. I can't fight anymore. Blake is thrown from the water and lands somewhere far in the distance. It suddenly becomes silent. There's nothing around me but water and I cough out as it enters my mouth.

Another ripple comes fast from my right, like a shark is skimming underneath the surface. It reaches me but stops, I catch the faint sight of a light beneath the waves before it disappears.

"Aurora!" Marina drops down from the clouds, her hands stretched out towards me. I weakly put a hand out and she grips it, dragging me from the water.

I dangle through the air for a few moments until she drops me on a mountain of boulders. I lay on my stomach panting, trying to catch my breath as bile rises up my throat. She lands next to me and I hear Blake's voice as I keep coughing up water.

"Why did you drop her? Keep moving!"

"Do you think it matters how far we take her?" Marina says. "They will hunt her no matter where we go."

"They?" I say, looking up at them in confusion.

Marina and Blake exchange a look of sadness before staring back at the ocean. "When we release ourselves, our souls become separate," Marina says. "We cannot feel them or talk to them until we form a body again. All Cain sees when he looks at you right now is a completed soul that he's competing for against Saffron."

"He had no choice," Blake says. "He wouldn't have stood a chance against her in her true form had he not released himself."

"That's how she beat him a few days ago," Marina says. "He refused to do it. The irony, Aurora is that in order to protect you Cain had to put himself in a position to kill you."

"What are we supposed to do?" Blake says in a panic. "We can't protect her."

"Not without releasing ourselves and making this a four-way race," Marina mumbles.

"I need the blade!" I say desperately. "Your creators gave it to me and I know what I have to do to stop her."

"This blade?" Marina says, bringing it out from her pocket. I nod my head as she passes it into my palm. "I swiped it from the guard, it looked a little too peculiar to ignore."

Blake edges closer to observe it, he twists his head and furrows his eyebrows. "What is it?"

"It's-" I fall backwards into the rocks as a giant wave of water bursts through the surface. A thin piece of white light, like a string, bends over the waves and ties around my ankle.

I am pulled into the water, being dragged deeper and deeper until I can hear ringing in my ears. I am not only dragged down but I am suddenly dragged backwards. The blade remains tight in my grip, I put all of my focus on not dropping it. The creature that I cannot see pulls me upwards and I break through the surface for merely a few seconds before it drags me back down.

Whether it's Cain or Saffron doesn't matter, they both want to feed on me. But whatever has a hold of my ankle cannot make the connection. It is touching me; shouldn't that be enough? The creature doesn't react in a pained way to touching me like Saffron or Thea did in their human forms so that must mean that it can feed on me. And yet it is choosing to drag me through the ocean. I think about something that Cain said once, that creatures need to form bodies to be able to feed. Is that why?

I am dunked back down and left floating in the deep water. The creature that has a hold of me brings its form up to study me. All I see is a glowing mist of energy but once it gets close enough, I see its eyes. The eyes are just barely visible through its godly glow, they are small and oval shaped, like diamonds, with a gentle yellow shine as though I'm looking at the stars.

The sight paralyzes me. Its glistening wings are pointed downwards, scraping against the bottom of the ocean a few miles below us. I know that it is Saffron, I don't know how I know but I just do. Over her form, another creature appears. His light makes all of the fish scatter, he is just as big as her, but there is something about his form that is beautiful. There is something about it that makes me believe I am truly in the presence of an angel or a god. His wings slowly move behind him, golden and flickering. Even in his true form he still has green eyes, they are even brighter, finding mine with tenderness and understanding.

His long arm grabs around Saffron's mist and he yanks her away. Her grip on my ankle stops and I am free but I am falling unconscious. My arms go limp first and my eyes fight to stay open. The creatures are locked against each other, their forms twisting and turning as they become lost in the darkness far below.

Set them free, a voice says. The power is yours.

I open my eyes and I stare up at the surface, I contemplate trying to swim but I'm too deep to make it in time. I stare at the blade in my hand. I know exactly what I'm doing and although it makes no sense, I trust this unknown entity that is helping me. I will the souls out with my mind, as though my hand is reaching into a portal and pulling them. The souls escape from the blade, the ones that I took from Saffron earlier, and they form a circle around me. I can't see who they are or what they were but their auras are beautiful. So many colours surround me. White, yellow, green, even pink. Maybe I'm hallucinating. Maybe my brain has been deprived of oxygen for so long that I am merely imagining the small army of souls in the water with me.

I close my eyes as I face the call of death. Only my body is lifted upwards as though a hundred arms are pushing me. My arms break through the surface and I take the biggest breath of my entire life. I watch in amazement as a lightning strike of lights take off towards the blue sky. They saved me.

What the hell is going on?

I'm becoming agitated and panicked. I don't know where Cain or Saffron are and I can't see Blake or Marina either. I'm too weak to swim and I don't even get the chance before a long, thin rope-type arm wraps around my waist and shoots me up into the air. I've never been so relieved to be in the air. The creature's wings flap gently at first, and I freeze in her hold as Saffron stares at me. She squeezes the rope tighter around me and I start to suffocate. Her form changes in front of my eyes, she relinquishes herself back into her human form. It happens within an instant and she replaces the rope with a strong hand that grips around my throat. She hisses through her mouth but fights through the discomfort to keep her death-grip on me.

"Just a little longer," she says. "He's not looking yet." I hear something break through the water below us and she smiles, tightening her hand for one final movement before she will snap my neck. Her body floats a little closer. "Bye."

"Bye," I say.

I stab the blade into her heart. Her green eyes widen so much that it's like she's having a stroke. Her body trembles and she coughs out vigorously. She removes her hand on my throat and I pull the blade out before I fall through the air. I am falling to my death but the sight of her body exploding into multiple lights makes me feel at peace. I will all of the souls out, including her own, and they burst away from me as I head in the opposite direction. Maybe I wasn't destined to ring the bell after all, maybe I was meant to save the universe from her. Maybe that's enough. Maybe it isn't. Maybe defeating a creature as a human will be as miraculous as it can get.

I close my eyes but Cain catches me before I meet the water again. My lips snarl as I realize he isn't going to let me die that easily. He's still in his true form and he can't speak to me. I don't even know if he can understand me. He throws me down onto the beach of a small island, I let out a cry as pain irradiates from my ankle. I rub it before trying to stand but the pain won't allow me to put weight on it. I look back to the palm trees at the top of the shore, wondering if I can hop and escape into the trees.

Cain lands at the shoreline, his bright essence demands attention. I can't look away from him, I can't run and I can't hide. I meet his lime green eyes inside the form of mist and I hold the blade through the air with a shaky hand.

"Cain," I say. "It's me. I don't want to hurt you."

I don't even know if the blade will work against him, I have no clue about the power it holds or the power that comes from me when I command it. One of his arms releases quickly and grips the blade, throwing it out of my hand and down the beach. His glow becomes closer as he hovers above the ground.

"It's me!" I cry, dropping to my knees. "You said that your kind can't feed without a body so just turn back and you'll see. Please."

He shows no indication that he can hear me, understand me or even knows that I'm making conversation at all. I think he can only see my soul, can only feel it calling out to him. The arm wraps around my stomach and he pulls me closer to him. I gasp as he plants me before him. He releases the arms and strokes them against my face as his eyes bore into me.

"It's me," I whisper, reaching out to touch the mist.

That he reacts to. His eyes twitch a little, showing a small flicker of reaction. He can feel my touch. Apart from sight, that must be how he communicates. I carry on touching him, the fabric of his essence is so strange, it is like touching gel or fish skin. It is slimy and almost solid but not completely. My fingers keep moving along the bizarre matter until my fingers are gripping solid and rough flesh.

Cain's human form returns within seconds and he gasps as he clings his hand around my face, studying every part of me intensely. His eyes are softer, less furious and threatening. I have never been so happier to see his dark hair and thick stubble. I run my fingers along his jawline.

"Aurora," he breathes out. He wraps his arms around me and I push my face into his chest. "I thought I lost you."

"I had some help," I say, looking over to the blade, but it's gone. I distance myself from Cain and I limp across the beach. "That's impossible. It was there. I swear it was."

"The blade is here," he says, holding up the original blade, his blade. "I just took it from you."

I stare at him. "That's not the blade that killed Saffron, it was something different. It was given to me."

"Given to you?" he says. "I don't understand. This is the only blade, you killed Saffron with it."

"No, it was. . ." I trail off, rubbing my temple. Maybe I was hallucinating. Either way, the blade is gone and Cain won't believe me. "Never mind."

"You did it," he says proudly, pulling me back to him. I hiss quietly as my ankle stings, he looks down at it with a frown. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I am glad that I didn't do any more damage though, without my humanity it was very difficult to understand you."

"You thought I was trying to attack you?" I say.

"Yes. I wouldn't have blamed you. I recognized you but I couldn't feel anything. It's very hard to explain."

"It's okay, you don't have to," I say, placing my hands around his shoulders. "I'm just glad you're back. I was so worried about you."

"I was worried about you too," he says, glancing down at me with sadness before he removes my hands from his body. "We need to talk."