Now I was screaming, but I couldn't tell if I really was through the rushing and pounding of blood in my ears like tidal waves. My entire body shook as an old train carriage would. I nearly buckle, but instead stumble towards Naomi, begging and praying to any entity out there that she was still breathing when I kneel down and place two fingers to the side of her throat to feel for even the faintest of pulses.

My heart jumps out of my chest like a child throwing a yo-yo, having not mastered the skill quite yet. I had my own small heart-attack as I feel the faintest heartbeat under her ashen skin.

"Oh my God, please help us!" I scream to no-one in particular. I didn't even know if anyone with a healer's training was nearby. At least I know not to remove the arrow from her, I just grip her arm tightly, not wanting to do anything in case it chases away any life left in her.

I continue to yell for help, and I can hear Cicero running off to alert someone.

I keep my other hand on Naomi's neck, making sure she's still breathing. I'm panting heavily, the drawing in of the smoky air rattling my lungs like an old man's. My eyes, thick with tears and smoke, glide over the gleaming silver arrow embedded in my friend.

It's expertly made, the obviously pure silver has swirling carvings and indecipherable runes burnt into it meticulously by hand. The tip I couldn't see, the very base of the shaft coated in red blood. The fletching was a hard metal, made from the same silver of the rest of the arrow, so closely resembling the plumage of a bird that I almost mistook it for a feather. Just below that, there's a strip of white, but it seemed to be burnt around the edges and barely hanging on to the weapon. It was a piece of paper.

Keeping an eye on Naomi, my hands tremble as I slowly and carefully remove the slip of thin paper from the arrow, ensuring it doesn't even make a whisper of movement to the tip of the arrow.

I take it into my hands, taking my hands away from Naomi's neck reluctantly and unrolling the message.

Gold ink seeped through the delicate note. It read;

We clash; one side against the other. The good one, the Evil one on the other, Death in the middle. Your own have betrayed you. You have a legend in your midst. Two dead monarchs. And a war on the horizon. Next time, all of you will die. She will die again, and become a raging goddess.

"It's their motto," a voice makes me jump out of my skin and I swear under my breath at Cicero.

"What the hell are you creeping up on me?" I squint up at him from my position on the blood-slick floor. Naomi needed help. Now. I had to think of her right now, nothing else. "Did you get help?"

He sighs and sweeps his arm behind him, revealing one of the healers from the academy infirmary. She covers her mouth as she sees the mess in front of her, me and my friend both covered in blood, and her close to death.

Before the healer rushes to Naomi, she shoots Cicero a confused look, but brushes past him anyway with more healers in tow.

I just sit there, my hands wrapped around my knees, in shock, clutching now crumpled paper in a right fist and mybknuckles turn white. I watch as the healers swarm around Naomi, and I can see faint tendrils of their magic floating around their hands fluttering over her wounds. They lift her up onto the worn stretcher they had brought with them, and carry her away until she is no longer visible through the thinning smoke. I don't move. I know Naomi's better off with them and they don't need me slowing them down.

As the healers had left in a rush and were too absorbed in their task, they hadn't noticed the insignia burned into the ground. Now Cicero kneels down beside it, knees cracking. He winces.

My eyes follow his pointer finger as it dips into the molten gold liquid and examines on his fingers, rubbing it together like a detective would with evidence.

"It's blood," he announces, standing up straight again. For having been trapped in a cave in Dragon form for thirteen years, he was in remarkably good form.

"Blood?" I reply, "The blood of what, exactly?"

"A Phoenix. Said to be an extinct race. That what race the Branwoirs, the hunters, decided to wipe out first. They're all gone. Dead. But this blood is fresh. Maybe a few weeks at least. Kept in a jar of some sort. They'd have needed a lot of jars, though."

We had learnt about Phoenixes in the academy classes, but they were wiped out about a two centuries ago by the hunters. There were none left, but if what Cicero was saying is accurate, that means Phoenixes still exist.

Cicero helps me stumble to my feet, grabbing my arm, leaving a smudge of gold blood on my skin. It's freezing cold.

He speaks again, "It was a sacrifice attempt. Those two circles," he nods to the venn-diagram shape circles, "They state the insignia of the Braiwnors. One side is the good, the mortal, the other, well, us. In the middle, is death. That's what your friend was for. To say that death is coming unless we're wiped out, so to speak."

I let out a puff if my air from my lungs and shake my head. "Why?" I ask.

"It's what they believe, I suppose."

I scan around me, and notice that the smoke and fire has almost completely cleared. That is when the nymphs come in handy. They're lining the balcony, which has its blood red carpet runner peeling and curling away from the marble floor in the heat. Water was swirling above us, merging into one massive wave. Then it falls.

I'm instantly drenched, but it's relieving. The coldness of the water streams down my back, causing my smoky clothes to stick to my body. I look up, there's small raindrops still falling. The dome has disappeared, most likely because their sacrifice had left it. I dread to think what would have happened if she had died, for more than one reason.

I couldn't think of that now. I could have my millionth panic attack of the month later on, after I find the family that I actually care about. Cicero wasn't included, but he could tag along.

My main concern was Nicole. A six year old, in the middle of this. They really shouldn't have been staying at the castle at all. They should be holed up, tight and cosy in our country cottage on Earth, instead of this surreal, fantasy place. But I can see why they didn't go back. Nicole deserved to grow up around her own people and not be hidden away like I was until very recently.

I start to move across the hall, carefully stepping over uneasy looking cracks and rubble on the floor, playing the game we all do when we're younger, avoiding the cracks in the flagstones. Just in case.

Cicero follows me, hissing in my ear, "Where are you going?!"

"To find my family, you know, the reason we came in here in the first place," I snap back, irritated and exhausted. I continue walking until I reach the front doors, stepping out into the fresh sea air of the western cliffs. It was in a stark relief to the heated, stuffy air of the castle hall. My eyes adjusted to the slightly darker surroundings, broken only by floating orbs of light overhead, casting an altered glow on the many people outside.

They're are rows of injured, groans and nearly silent crying drifting towards me where I am standing. I tried not to look at them, the injured. What, or who had done this? Who had betrayed us so the Branwoirs could force themselves through the shield?

"Raelynn!" A faint voice is yelling somewhere behind us. It's probably someone looking for a friend. I hope they find them.

"Raelynn!" The male voice repeats, closer now, the heavy thumping of jogging footsteps increasing as it nears.

"Rae!" A large hand grabs my shoulder, spinning me round to face him, startling me into to grabbing his wrist and bending it back.

"What the hell?" I say.

He looks at me like an injured puppy with his chocolate eyes, "What you do that for, Rae, that hurt. And stop putting in the accent. Just because we're in the West now doesn't mean we have to mock them. Not the time." He rubs his wrist, pulling away from me. Where I grabbed him, the darker skin is tinted an angry red. I didn't even grab him that hard for his skin to react like that.

His accent is broader than what is common around here, thicker and less lilting. I can tell her from up North, maybe the lakelands.

I give him a confused look. He must be confusing me for someone else.

"What are you wearing anyway, and what'd you do to it to get it in a mess like that?" He asks.

"I have no idea who and what you're going on about, but can you you leave me alone to go and find my family? Please and thank you very much," I reply, turning back around and marching off again, more than pissed.

Cicero follows, waves of dry amusement rolling off of him by the gallons.

"I must say that was quite amusing, daughter," his voice sounds as though he is trying to repress a heavy chuckle.

I grit my teeth at him calling me 'daughter', but don't say anything.

I stalk onwards, fists clenched to my sides. That stupid boy had kept me back.

I turn around when I don't sense Cicero behind me anymore. I look back, confused as to why he would abruptly stop. He stands perfectly still a good few feet behind me, eyes wide and body pin straight. His eyes are dilated and his nose flared like a dog's in the hunt for a stag.

I stomp towards him, so close that my nose is scraping his tattered shirt. I look up, and snap my fingers in his face.

He growls, and grabs my wrist, not even sparing a glance at me. He wrenches me along with him, and I'm dragged for a good while, my feet stumbling on loose rocks in the path as I desperately try to keep up. What was coming over him so suddenly?

He halts in his tracks, letting me go. I rub my wrist, looking at our surroundings. I hadn't been paying much attention to where we were going while being dragged like a reluctant sleeping cat.

After assuring myself I was physically fine, except for a few minor burns to my arms and hands, I tune into where we are.

We hadn't come far, on the outskirts of the people leaving the castle. We're near the corner of the academy, sheltered from the coastal winds by  courtyard walls. The noises of the commotion behind us is faint but I still can't tune out the pain.

We were in the courtyard near the bell tower, which we must have come through to get here. The fountain isn't flowing, and it's just the same as it had been this afternoon. But the weeds through the cracks in the flagstones seem sinister and tangled than they were before. The very crack they force their way through seem darker and the darkness seeps out, covering the ground in a shadowy haze of late dusk.

In the middle of the old courtyard, are three people, an adult, a small child and a teenager. Cicero has rushed to the adult, falling to his knees at her side. As I draw closer, the figure lying on the ground, the woman Cicero is kneeling over, is my mother.

My breath hitches in my throat, my chest tightening as I take in her battered state. A large gash takes over her small forehead, bleeding heavily. Her arms, which lay splayed at strange angles on either side of her, are black and blue with bruises. She was barely conscious, and her breath was twisting in the cold air in short pants. The wind seeps into my wet clothes, making me shiver.

My brother and sister kneel on either side of her. Nicole's eyes are streaming and her bottom lip and small hands quivering. Cade just looks at Cicero suspiciously, and goes to open his mouth to speak, but I shoot him a warning look as he sees me, and shuts it again.

Everything I had learnt today flies through my head in a whirlwind of thoughts. Cade might not be my real brother. But I can't consider that right now. I drop down next to Nicole and pull her close to my chest, and she grabs my shirt like a vice, pinching the skin underneath painfully.

I reluctantly look at my injured mother again. Cicero was the only one who can help her now. He was her mate, not the man I had grown up with, thinking he was in love with my mother, when he really had separated them right before I and my sibling was born.

I watch Cicero eagerly as he touches my mother gently, first tracing the shape of her face. Her eyes, over her cheekbones, the line of her lips, her jaw. Down her neck, her collarbone, until his hands stop right over her heart. He closes his eyes and a single tear rolls slowly down his left cheek, cutting a clear track through the dirt and grime.

It falls from the edge of his shin and drips onto her lips. I know this wouldn't do anything. Our tears aren't magical, that would be ridiculous. No, our hands held with our true mate's had healing properties. So when my mother's eyes fly open suddenly, it doesn't surprise me. But what leaves her mouth in a rasping whease nest does.

"Raelynn."