First, walking through the forest in the dark is NOT fun. Especially when your guide keeps leading you over huge logs and across streams. Second, I don't like ravens anymore. Well, okay, I don't like this one. I just hated the way it watched me. It just seemed so intelligent and... I don't know, off.

It seemed like hours had passed since I had left he temple. My palms were scratched and sore, my knees hurt, and I was gonna shoot myself a bird and feed it to Clay. I was that unhappy.

The bird cawed, and I looked up. Of course, it was just in time to see it vanish into the trees. I closed my eyes and sighed, fighting not to go to the nearest tree and bash my brains in. Either I'm a fool or... nope, never mind, I'm a fool. I turned to go, and smacked into something. I stumbled back, tripped over a log, and landed smack on my butt in a puddle. Why there was a puddle in the jungle when it obviously hadn't rained in a while, don't ask me.

I brushed the hair out of my eyes and looked up. A man stood there, and I swear, he was quite possibly the best looking man I had ever seen. I didn't show it though. Instead, I narrowed my eyes at him. His hair was dark, probably black. It had random spikes in places, but it looked good. He had pale skin, and appeared to be wearing all black. I couldn't tell much else about him because it was so dark and I had mud in my eyes.

He held out a gloved hand to me, and I took it. He pulled me to my feet and chuckled when I slipped and fell against him. I shoved away quickly, almost falling again.

"Careful young one." he said. His voice sent shivers down my spine.

"Who are you?" I asked. He laughed again.

"No one you need to worry about right now. Tell me, what are you doing out so late?"

Now I laughed. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

The man raised an eyebrow. "Try me."

I stared for a second before realizing he was serious. I laughed again, then sighed. "I was following a bird. Don't give me that look, I warned you!"

He had raised his other eyebrow in a look of incredulity. "A bird? Why?"

I smiled wryly and replied, "I have no idea. What about you? Why are you out here?" I didn't think that there was a village anywhere near here, so running into someone was a bit of a surprise.

The man smiled and took a step towards me. "You will know one day, Emily."

I frowned. "How do you know my name? And was that an answer to my first question or the second?" He took another step towards me and reached out to cup my face with his hand. Almost instantly a deep tiredness filled me. I fell forward, and the stranger caught me. The last thing I saw was a bird fly out of the trees and land on the man's shoulder.

Chase stared at the sleeping girl in his arms. He had gotten the information he needed from her mind while putting her to sleep. He found everything about her interesting, though he wasn't sure why. He thought he could vaguely feel a power emanating from her, but if it was, the source was so weak he wasn't sure about that either.

The information he needed had also been accompanied by other thoughts. For example, Chase had just just discovered that Emily was not actually the Dragon of Light's sister. She was in fact, simply a close friend. They had known each other long enough to feel like sisters, but...

Chase turned to the bird on his shoulder. "Well done. Continue to keep an eye on her." Chase teleported to the temple and placed Emily on a bench next to the path. She would wake up in the morning with nothing but a blurry recollection of this night. Chase turned and slipped into the shadows. "Sleep well, My Lady."