Once we had recorded and sent the message orb, Shade and I sprinted through the forest at a run in a hope that if our friends did decide to pursue us by ground or sky they would find that we were too far ahead to catch.

Shade insisted that we stay on the ground for the same reason that we had to leave our dragons, the sky was dangerous. So there we were, running full speed through the dead trees with absolutely no idea what lay ahead. Although a good thing about the fear of the unknown was that it was a very effective way of keeping me alert and my adrenaline burning,

"We're coming close to the forest's border" shouted Shade over his shoulder.

I ignored the silent screams coming from my tired limbs and pushed myself on faster to catch up to Shade. I ran directly behind him and kept my attention ahead, allowing me to think over and realise just how stupid our little plan was, we had rushed off so quickly that we didn't think of bringing food or water. So on the off chance that we actually make it to the kingdom of flames alive, we have nothing to give Chase for the journey back.

Shade stopped dead in his tracks causing me to run straight into the back of him, we both crashed to the floor and groaned in pain.

"Why?" I whined, pushing myself off his back.

"I thought I heard something" he mumbled, rolling over so he was laying on his back.

I copied his gesture and looked up at the towering skinny trees.

"Well, we've probably scared it off now," I said while stretching my aching arms up to the sky.

I forced myself into a sitting position and looked over to Shade who seemed to be quite happy laying down in the middle of nowhere... in fact, he seemed too happy. It was then that his fight with Luna came flooding back to me, he was transparently showing signs that he was hurt but the question was how? he's a werewolf hybrid so he should've healed more or less straight away unless the injury was poisoned with some sort of powerful wolfsbane herb.

With that unsettling thought in mind, I quickly scanned over his body to discover that a small portion of his shirt seemed to be darker than the rest which was a classical sign of blood, and as far as I knew Luna didn't actually cut him.

"Shade, how are you still hurt?" I asked softly.

His tired eyes suddenly widened and he shot up into a sitting position with a pained look in his eyes.

"I'm not, I'm completely fine," he said defensively while getting to his feet.

I pulled myself to my own feet and moved swiftly to step directly in front of him.

"Aurora, it's just a scratch" he groaned without meeting my eyes as he stepped around me.

I shook my head and span around, swiftly grabbing his arm. I turned him to face me again and yanked up his shirt to see an infected looking wound over his chest, in the exact place that I had stabbed him in the house games.

"Just a scratch?" I questioned, becoming overcome with guilt.

He looked at me sheepishly and moved my hands to roll his shirt down.

"You do realise that I can heal people right?" I asked wondering why he had chosen to suffer his injury.

"Not a wound like this, it's laced with dark magic" he explained "I'm guessing that whatever possessed you wanted you to kill me, or at least weaken me for a reason" he finished.

"Ok, maybe I can't completely get rid of it but I can heal it temporally, at least you won't have to be in pain," I said looking up to meet his eyes.

"I'm scared of what it might do to you, it requires a lot of skill and energy to do such a thing," he said quickly.

"The mighty Shade is scared?" I questioned making his face pale slightly.

"N- no... concerned! I meant that I'm concerned" he blurted in embarrassment.

I raised my eyebrows at him and shook my head with a smile playing at my lips.

"Ok then let me do this for you... your concerns are risks that I don't mind taking," I said firmly.

"Worth the risk? we don't even know how long it will stay healed" he protested.

"It doesn't matter" I reasoned "If it keeps you alive then that's what we are doing"

He looked at me pleadingly but I shot him a glare that showed him that my mind was made up.

"Fine" he sighed looking at the ground.

I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him over to a nearby tree.

"Sit down" I instructed.

He sat on the ground with his back against the tree and watched as I sat down next to him.

"Here goes nothing" I sighed, feeling slightly nervous.

He reluctantly rolled up his shirt to once again expose his injury, I slowly placed my hand over it and closed my eyes for better concentration.

"If you use up too much energy stop, I'll be fine, " said Shade anxiously.

I ignored his comment and focused every single thought on his injury. I pictured how it looked, how I imagined it to feel, and used this image to create an animation of it closing up before me. I reopened my eyes to see exactly that, my hands were glowing softly over the now closing wound. I watched in amazement as it became smaller and smaller, but the more it shrank, the wearier I became.

Tiredness consumed my body quickly, forcing me to fight my conciseness as well as my magic to keep the wound healing. This was working well until my inner strain started to reflect my appearance, a metallic smell sparked my senses as blood dripped down from my nose into my mouth. I looked back down the injury to see that it was so close to being healed but my hands were becoming covered in black veins, making it seem as though my own blood was becoming poisoned.

"Aurora stop!" shouted Shade, but to me, it sounded like a whisper.

My vision blurred and the trees began to sway, I felt Shade grab my hands but my magic didn't stop flowing from them and it wouldn't until he was healed, If I could only hold on to my consciousness until that happened.

"Princess?" he screamed desperately, cupping my face in his hands.

A faint buzzing reached my ears as I stared at Shade in confusion, his mouth was moving but there were no words, strange. I looked down at his injury one more time to see that it had disappeared from his skin completely. I looked into his crimson eyes just as black clouds started to blur my vision.

He was going to be so mad at me, I had done the complete opposite of what he said and used up all of my energy. But I had to save him, there was no hope for my own survival so he must live. I now know that certain death awaits me. After all, for a powerful being like Sebastian to be released from imprisonment a sacrifice had to be made, a sacrifice that contained the blood of the prisoner ruining through their veins.