Emily was still smiling later that evening when she finally went back to her room.

She put a towle around her head to let her hair dry, she'd spent nearly the entire day in the pond, right up until dinner time.

She touched a few of the Agean lamps, which we're soft blue glowing balls placed into the walls.

Her room became a soft glow. All pristine and white, she was sure she had ruined more then one sheet when she spilled her many breakfest on the bed sheets.

She turned and sat down on one of the comfy white chairs, with the blue and golden arms.

"Ahhh." She sighed.

Someone knocked on her door.

Emily opened one eye. "Who is it?"

No answer.

Emily stood up, walked to her double doors and opened one of them.

There was no one there. She looked each way down the long carpeted hallway. No one.

She closed the door and snapped the lock in place.

Just as she reached up to take her towl off her head, she heard the same knock.

Emily took her towl, threw it on the floor and stomped to the door, flinging it open.

"Look..." She stoped.

There was no one there again.

Emily slamed the door and locked them both. Moving quickly back from the doors she listened for another knock.

Emily walked back until she nearly was backed up against one of the glass windows.

The knock came again.

Emily chocked back a scream, it hadn't come from in front of her.

It was behind her!

Emily froze, her breathing quickened.

She slowly moved away from the window. Reaching out she grabbed the nearest ornament on one of the small tables.

She whirled around and screamed, her frieght made her drop her tiny weapon on the ground.

A dark blue face was floating near her window. The bright green eyes focused on her. The creature smiled, showing sharp red teeth.

Emily stoped screaming and quickly turned to run out the other door.

A crash behind her and she knew the creatures was in her room. She was not going to look behind her again.

She undid the lock, yanked the door open and quickly pulled herself to the right of her door.

The creature sped by her, neraly ramming into the corridors oposit wall.

Quickly Emily ran as fast as she could down the hall.

"Help!! Help!!"

Emily grabbed one of the chairs, and threw it behind her, she heard it crash into its mark. But she didn't look behind to see if the creature was still there.

She kept running and then turned a sharp left, running right into Asher.

He grabbed her arms, "What's wrong..."

Asher looked up and stoped. "Oh no."

Emily felt a movement above her head, and the next thing she knew, Asher was sailing down the hall landing in a crumpled heap of wings and white cloth.

Emily shook all over. The strange creature was right above her, she could just make out the bizzare floating black hands on either side of her.

"Emily!"

Emily looked up and saw Gabriel near Asher.

He held a short sword in his hand, with the other he pointed to her.

"Don't move!" He told her.

Gabriel said something in Agean. The creature above her, flickered.

Gabriel moved closer.

Suddenly Emily was sucked backwards, swallowed up into something that felt like a huge tub a jello.

It was kind of like water and she opened her eyes, she could see Gabriel fighting the creature.

She was inside the creature!

Gabriel stabed it a few times, almost coming close to putting the sword in her a few times.

Emily tried to scream only to swallow some of the jello stuff.

Gabriel's uniform had two red spots on it. He was bleeding!

Gabriel avoided one of the floating arm creations, and jabed upwards, nearly striking Emily in her arm.

The creature seemed to fall backwards.

It landed on the floor with a huge thump and gave off a horible sound, like glass breaking.

She found herself moving easier as jello substance around her began to melt.

She was left in a pool a black goo by the time the creature had finally completly disapeared.

Gabriel knelt near her, his head down, breathing hard.

Emily crawled forward. "Gabriel?"

Gabriel groaned and then fell forward flat on his face.

"Gabriel!"

Emily slid towards him. She heaved with all her might and turned him over. One of his wings, hung at a strange angel, and he was covered in blood.

"Oh God!" Emily moaned. "GAbriel?!"

Gabriel's eyes fluttered open and then closed, he coughted and blood sputtered out of his mouth.

Emily began to scream and cry at the same time.

"Someone please! Help us!! HELP!!"

Gabriel whispeared something. "Ash...Asher."

Emily looked up, wipping away her tears with her goo and blood covered hand.

Asher was still crumpled in a heap down at the end of the hall.

Emily looked down. "I can't leave you Gabriel."

GAbriel reached up and took her hand. He squeezed it.

Emily chocked back a sob.

She laid him down and weakly ran down the hall to Asher.

"Asher?"

Asher didn't respond. She rolled him over, and gasped. There was a shard of what looked like black glass stuck in his side!

"Oh no!"

"Lord Gabriel!"

Emily turned her head, the gaurds had finally come.

"Help!" she called out. "Lord Asher needs help too!"

Emily was half crying with hysteria as the gaurds came and moved her out of the way.

One of them picked her up. "It will be alright Lady Emily. Lord Asher will recover."

Emily turned her head and saw Gabriel being lifted onto a flat board.

"And Lord Gabriel?"

The gaurd shook his head. "We aren't sure yet."

Emily shook her head. "No. He can't die!"

The gaurd tried to move her away but she struggled to get to Gabriel's side.

"Gabriel!" she screamed.

***********

Emily sat stiff in one of the chairs outside the infirmary.

The Agean gaurds that surrounded her paid her little attention, they were too bussy on the look out for more assasings.

Finally one of the Agean doctors came out and bowed to her.

"Lady Emily, you have nothing to fear. Lord Asher is now stable, we've removed the shard that was in side of him, and he is healing nicely."

Emily nodded her head. "And? What about Gabriel?"

The Doctor shook his head, "Gabriel sustained a lot of internal damage during the battle. He is still in critical condition."

Emily paled. "But he'll be alrigth, right?"

The Doctor could only shake his head. "We do not know Lady Emily. If you wish though, you can come in and see Lord Asher."

Emily's hands were clamy, she really wanted to see Gabriel.

She followed the doctor into the operating room. It was a strange room, round and the walls were an almost translucent red colour.

She saw Asher lying on his back, in a Agean bed that was purposly made to support his wings.

The doctor pulled out a chair for her and left her alone beside Asher.

Emily didn't like Asher that much, but he was a living being, and she hated to see anyone hurt and in pain.

She touched his hand that lay against his side.

"Thank you Asher, for coming when you heard me yell for help. I'm sorry you were hurt..."

Suddenly a moan from behind her made her turn around.

It had come from behind a red curtain.

Emily looked for the doctors but they had all left her alone to sit by Asher.

Emily wondered if it was Gabriel.

She stood up and went to the curtain, pulling it back a bit, and gasped.

"Oh my God."

Emily looked down at the pale, still form of Gabriel. His arms and neck were filled with tubes, pumping liquid into his blood stream.

His wing that had been damaged was raised up in a sling of sorts, and wrapped in a bundled to hold it.

Emily covered her hand with her mouth. He looked dead.

Emily slowly approched him, taking in his battred appearence.

She reached out and touched his forhead, he was very cool to the touch.

"Gabrie? Can you hear me?"

No response.

Emily came up to stand right beside him. She took his hand and held it in both of hers. Bringing it up to her cheek and resting it there. She closed her eyes, she wasn't going to cry! She wasn't weak!

Emily opened her eyes, straining not to cry. "I'm so sorry Gabriel. Just don't die, please. I may not like you most of the time...but...you saved me. I don't want you to die for that reason. Please. I couldn't bear it...if anyone died, because it was my fault...I couldn't deal with that."

She lay his hand back on the table and watched his face carefull.

"So you can't die."

She waited for any response, but he lay still on the table. His eyes closed.

Emily took a deep breath. "Please Gabriel, come back so I can thank you for saving my life."

She turned to go, but instead leaned down and kissed his cheek. "Thank you."

"Well well, I never saw this coming." A voice said with amusement. "You're in love with him."

Emily whipped around to find Asher sitting up awkwardly on the table.

"Excuse me?" Emily snapped.

Asher winced for his wound but continued. "You are in love with Gabriel. That's why you fight him tooth and nail all the time."

Emily shook her head. "You're wrong, I'm just very worried about him."

"Like you're worried about me? I could hear you talking to me, and to Gabriel over there. Sounds to me like you were more worried about Gabriel then me."

Emily pointed behind her, "Gabriel's the one who's more injured, he's the one that might even die."

Asher shook his head. "Oh, I doubt that. We Agean can heal very quickly."

Emily turned her back on Asher. "How can you make jokes. Your cousin could be dieing."

"He's not my cousin."

Emily turned her head, looking over her shoulder. "What?"

Asher came off the bed, "I said, he's not my cousin. Emily, Gabriel once told me you said you saw a resemblence between the two of us. That's because we're half brothers."

Emily stared from Gabriel to Asher. "Half-Brothers?"

Asher looked at Gabriel on the bed, "Gabriel is the true hier to this kingdom. His mother died giving birth to him. That never happens to an Agean, it was thought she'd been poisoned. If the word leaked out that the hier to the thrown had been born and his mother had died in birth. Well, everyone would have seen it as a bad omen. So a story was woven, our father's brother, took Gabriel as his own son. Our father remarried after the morning period, and soon took a wife, my mother who bore twins. Myself and Aurora."

Emily shook her head. "Why did Gabriel have to give up his birth right, just because his mother was poisoned."

"Agean ways are different then yours, the death of a mother is a bad omen. Gabriel was doomed to be cast away no matter what happened."

Emily shook her head. "That's awful, no child should be contemed simply because of the standings of their birth."

"You would think so, but the realty is quite different, especially here on Agean."

**********