"Still a chance for what?" Derek asked to no one in particular as he settled in his chair. Odette was sleeping, this time without speaking. Comforted by this, he too drifted off to sleep.

Odette, without Derek's knowledge, awoke in the middle of the night. She was surprised to find she couldn't move, and could barely speak. It didn't make any sense.

Then she remembered.

She flinched at the mere memory of her pain. It amazed and frightened her how easily she'd been rendered a useless liability, right there in front of every Guardian in Elmswell. She could barely see as Fiera dropped to the floor several feet away.

She hardly understood the words Sabian had hissed in her ear as she writhed in pain on the cold stone ballroom floor. She only picked up bits and pieces; something about being pathetic here, something about a warning not to move there. But, more importantly, she had heard something that had given her the strangest sense of hope.

He'd said something about letting her go. Then that meant he still had her!

As much as she wished she could think about the possibility, play it out in her mind, she just couldn't. Her mind was far too exhausted, and her body wasn't much better. Her head still hurt, but it didn't stop her from easing back into sleep. However, her sleep would have been much more restful if her dreams would have allowed it.

Odette stood alone in what was literally the middle of nowhere. She didn't even cast a shadow on the white floor. She took a few tentative steps in front of her, trying to figure out just where she was among the abyss.

"Hello?" she called, hoping for an answer although there was no one around. To her disappointment, no immediate answer came. But then there was a voice, one that sounded eerily like her own.

"Odette…" it called.

"Mother?" Odette couldn't help but call back. The voice was just so familiar. She'd heard it before, but it couldn't be her own. Why would she be calling her own name?

"Yes…" the voice answered. "Odette, there's something I need to tell you. Something I've wanted to say since the day I laid eyes on you. I love you, my daughter. I'm so proud of you."

"Thank you, mother," Odette replied, for lack of better words. "I love you too. I wished I could say it all my life."

"Odette, I'm always here for you, always listening. Even if you can't see me, I'm there, dearest."

Odette felt a tear roll down the side of her face. She touched her cheek where the moisture left a trail as it went down. Quickly, she wiped it away.

"Don't cry, little one. Odette, there is something else I must tell you. Sabian is dangerous. Very dangerous. He will stop at nothing to see you and Derek dead. My dear, you must be careful. I know I wasn't physically there when you were growing up, but hear me when I say, you must be cautious."

Odette nodded. "Yes, mother. I promise, I'll be careful." Odette was struck with a strange question that her heart was begging desperately to ask. "Mother, where are you?"

The voice didn't respond for a few moments. "I-I don't know, Odette."

A sudden voice from reality broke Odette from the dream.

"Odette?" It was Derek, gently shaking Odette's shoulder, trying to wake her up. Her eyes fluttered open in confusion.

"What's wrong, Derek?" she asked as she began to come around to the land of the living, as Derek called it when she was sleeping deeply.

"You were mumbling in your sleep. I was worried about you," he replied. "Actually, you were talking in your sleep last night."

"What was I saying?"

"Last night you said that there might still be a chance, but I didn't know what for. But I couldn't understand you at all just now. You sounded upset, though. Is something wrong?"

"The events of last night excepted, no. Nothing's wrong."

Derek nodded and kissed her on the forehead. She didn't feel as warm as she did the night before, so he hoped that was a good sign. She even seemed a lot stronger than she had after the 'Hell Strike,' as it was called, wore off. "Fiera needs to speak with you," he mentioned. "But she did say to wait until you were feeling up to it."

"How is she?" Odette asked, concern flooding into her for her friend.

"She's fine. She took it a lot better than you did. No offense," he added quickly. He didn't want to make her feel bad about what had happened.

"None taken." She waved her hand to show her disregard for the comment. "I feel better now, too. I'll get dressed then talk to her."

Derek helpfully handed her a pair of pants, a shirt, and a pair of boots. "Fiera sent these down. I guess she knew you'd recover quickly. I'm glad she did, because I forgot to.

Odette looked around the room for a place to get dressed privately. Unfortunately, there was none, it seemed. But then Derek, a life saver in more ways than one, she mentioned, drew the curtain that she hadn't noticed. The curtain wrapped around her bed, making her a private changing room.

Quickly, she threw on her clothes. She was really in no rush, but then again, she felt like she taking action, not just lying in bed and taking her time getting ready when there was so much to do. She explained this to Derek in one breath as she pulled her shirt over her blonde hair.

"And I think 'action' might be Fiera's middle name," she added with a smile.

As soon as she was ready, they made their way up to Fiera's room, where Derek had been told she'd be. It wasn't a long walk, and it was made shorter by the fact that they were moving very fast. Truly, they didn't know why. There was nothing to be solved by merely walking faster than normal.

Odette was the one to knock on the door.

"Come in, it's open," Fiera called from the other side.

Odette and Derek stepped in to see Fiera stand up from behind the desk she was working at. She set her quill down and came around the desk to meet them. "First off," she began, guilt in her voice, "I want to apologize for the way I handled the situation last night."

"It's alright, Fiera," Odette promised, feeling a little sorry for her.

"Not really, no. I behaved in a manner unbecoming of the highest ranking officer in the Guardian army, and for that I should apologize."

"Fiera, things could have gone much worse last night," Derek said. Even if Fiera hadn't been knocked out of the fight, there was nothing she could have really done without risking Odette's life. She shrugged when he said this.

"Either way, I shouldn't have let him get to me. I'm sorry."

Changing the subject, Odette looked over to Fiera's desk. "What were you working on?"

"Tracking Sabian. Come, I'll show you." She beckoned to them as she led the way back to her desk and sat down. Odette and Derek leaned over her shoulders, interested in finding Sabian. "Because I'm part demon, I've been able to get a good guess at where he is," she continued. "I think he's here." She pointed to a drawing of a castle on the map. "This castle hasn't been used in probably a hundred years by humans or Guardians, which would make it perfect for demons. They hate when they have to construct their own layers. They're terribly lazy."

Odette looked at the map where Fiera had pointed out. "Fiera, I think you're right.

"It only makes sense," Derek agreed. "They came from the west, and they didn't even bother to try and hide that. The problem was, we couldn't see well enough last night to track them properly."

"Then, if they didn't hide anything, they must be baiting you, Odette," Fiera deduced. "Otherwise they would have just killed you."

"I think my mother is still alive. I think that's the bait," Odette said, not really surprised, but very nervous about it.

"How do you know?" Derek asked the question that was on both their minds.

"She spoke to me," Odette explained, "in a dream." Odette told them everything she could about the night before and every detail of her dream.

"That sounds like Sabian," Fiera said. "It'd be just like him to bait you with someone you love."

"We have to get her back."

Fiera nodded. "I know. We can lead the army there. They'd be more than willing to go, I'm sure."

"I can't ask them to risk their lives on just a hunch."

"I don't think you know just how much they loved your mother, and just how much they'd love to have her back. I'll set up a meeting with the officers."

The meeting went in Odette's favor. There was no contest. "We can't in good conscience let you go alone or miss out on this chance to save Cassandra."

It was decided. They would march the next day to face off with Sabian and his army.

XxX

The next morning, all the Guardians that would be making the trip met just in front of the gates of Elmswell. Several families were hugging each other goodbye.

"I can't believe you put your own mother on the inactive roster," Angel commented.

"Well, someone's got to help the others protect the city while the rest of the army is gone," she replied defensively. Angel laughed in answer, knowing her answer was phony. She worried and care about her mother, which was something he couldn't blame her for, but still. The inactive roster was usually reserved for rookie fighters or injured soldiers.

When everyone formed their ranks, Odette marched between Derek and Fiera, giving her a chance to ask Fiera something else she'd been wondering about.

"Why does Sabian call you a half breed?"

"Because I'm half human and half demon. When I was born, that is."

"You mean that's possible?""Yes. It's rarely a relationship formed out of love, though. Many demons think it's funny to um… take advantage of humans. Guardians hate it, and it gives demons a chance to assert their dominance. But the demon that fathered Enyo, he did something strange. He took Enyo from her human mother. No one really knows why. Some think it was just to cause the woman agony, and I wouldn't put it past him.

"Anyway, I guess I should tell you this now before someone else tells you. Sabian was Enyo's father. My father. That's why I hate him. I hate being related in any way to him. I don't care how many times I'm reborn, I will always be a piece of him, a piece of evil itself. And that's why he must be stopped. I think I can atone for what Enyo did back then, if he's beaten."

Odette looked ahead. She wanted to beat Sabian too. She wanted to get her mother back, if she was still alive. It seemed the world would be a better place if Sabian would die. So that was the only option. With Fiera, Derek, and everyone else's help, she would beat Sabian.

She would kill him, like her mother before her had tried to.

A shiver of strange eagerness went up and down her spine.