Isla's POV
The knife touches my skin and everything explodes.
Not just light this time. Sound. The bone cage holding Draven SHATTERS like it was made of glass. Pieces fly everywhere. Warriors scream and dive for cover.
Draven is free.
And he's not glowing blue anymore.
He's glowing WHITE.
Pure, blazing white light that hurts to look at. It pours off him in waves, and where it touches Kira's warriors, they collapse. Not dead—just unconscious, like the light knocked them out.
Kira drops the knife and stumbles backward, genuine fear crossing her face for the first time. "That's impossible. White light means—"
She doesn't finish because Draven is on her.
But he doesn't kill her. Doesn't even touch her. He just stands there, radiating that terrible white light, and growls one word: "Leave."
Kira stares at him. At me. At the unconscious warriors scattered around us.
Then she runs.
Just turns and sprints into the darkness like demons are chasing her. Her remaining conscious warriors follow, abandoning their camp, their prisoners, everything.
The white light fades. Draven collapses.
I crawl out of the cage and reach him just as Theron breaks free from his prison. The big tiger rushes over, checking Draven's pulse with shaking paws.
"He's alive," Theron breathes. "Just exhausted. That power... I've never seen anything like it."
"What was it?" I whisper. "Why did Kira run?"
Silas slithers over, having escaped during the chaos. His golden eyes are wide with shock. "White light is from the old legends. The very old ones. It means..." He swallows hard. "It means he's not just an alpha with ancient power. He's a Chosen. A warrior blessed by the First Spirits themselves."
"And that's bad?" Caspian limps over, rubbing his head where he was clubbed.
"It's unheard of," Silas corrects. "Chosen haven't existed for generations. Most think they're just myths. But if word spreads that a real Chosen has awakened..." He looks at me with something like pity. "Every clan will either worship him or try to kill him. There's no middle ground."
Great. Just great.
We grab Draven and the freed prisoners—twenty terrified human women who can barely believe they're escaping—and run. We run until my legs give out, until my ribs feel like they're breaking all over again, until even Theron's massive strength is failing.
We collapse in a small cave system miles from Kira's camp.
And that's when I notice it's snowing.
Not the light flurries from before. Heavy, thick snowflakes that pile up fast. The temperature drops so quickly I can see my breath in white clouds.
The captured women huddle together, shivering. They're wearing thin leather scraps—whatever Kira gave them. Not nearly enough for winter.
"We need shelter," I rasp to Theron. "Real shelter. This cave won't—"
Water splashes on my head. I look up. The cave ceiling is leaking. Melted snow is dripping through cracks in the rock, forming puddles on the floor.
Within an hour, we're all soaked and freezing.
The beast-men don't seem bothered. They shake off water like it's nothing, their thick fur keeping them warm enough. But the humans? We're dying.
Two of the women are already turning blue. Their teeth chatter so hard I can hear it echoing off the walls.
"Fire," I manage through my own shivers. "We need fire."
Caspian brings wood but it's wet. Everything is wet. Silas tries creating friction with his scales but the kindling won't catch.
I watch in horror as one woman stops shivering. That's worse than shivering. That means hypothermia is winning.
"Theron!" I grab his arm desperately. "She's dying. They're all dying. We need heat NOW."
He looks helpless. "I don't know how to—"
"Use Draven!" The words burst out of me. "He glows with power. That makes heat, right? Wake him up!"
"He's too weak from—"
"WAKE HIM UP OR WATCH US FREEZE!"
Theron stares at me for one long moment. Then he shakes Draven hard. "Brother. Brother, wake up. The humans are dying."
Draven's eyes snap open—still glowing faintly white. He sees the blue-lipped women. Understands immediately.
He doesn't question. Doesn't hesitate. Just pulls all twenty women close and lets his power radiate outward. Not explosive like before. Gentle. Controlled. Like a living furnace.
The women stop shivering. Color returns to their faces. They press against him, crying in relief.
And I realize we have a bigger problem.
This cave leaks. The floor floods when it rains. There's no insulation, no ventilation, no drainage. It's basically a stone coffin that will kill us slowly through cold and damp.
We need to fix it or leave.
But leaving means traveling through snow. And I look at these women—starved, exhausted, traumatized—and know they won't survive a migration south.
Neither will I, with my half-healed ribs and damaged throat.
We're stuck here. In a death trap cave. With winter coming fast.
I have to fix this. Have to use every scrap of engineering knowledge my past life gave me. Because if I don't, we'll all be dead in a week.
"Draven," I whisper when the women finally fall asleep in his warm glow. "I need to talk. Important."
He gently extracts himself and comes over. Theron, Silas, and Caspian gather too. They know something's wrong.
I point at the leaking ceiling. The flooded floor. The lack of insulation. Using every gesture I know, I try to explain: this cave will kill us. We need to dig drainage channels. Block cracks with mud and grass. Create ventilation holes. Build raised platforms to sleep on.
"How long?" Draven asks simply.
I hold up seven fingers. One week. Maybe. If we work constantly and nothing goes wrong.
"And if we don't fix it?" Silas asks.
I draw a line across my throat. Dead. All of us.
"Then we work," Draven says firmly. He looks at his brothers. "Caspian, you scout for materials—clay, grass, anything Isla needs. Silas, help me dig drainage channels. Theron, keep everyone healthy and translate what Isla wants."
They nod and scatter to work.
But I'm worried. Because fixing the cave is just the first problem. We also need food. Medicine. Warm clothes for the humans. A plan for when Kira returns with an army.
And we need to figure out what Draven's white light means before it gets us all killed.
I'm so tired. So overwhelmed. For the first time since arriving in this nightmare world, I want to give up.
That's when one of the women approaches me. She's young—maybe nineteen—with red hair and freckles. She learned some English from Kira's camp.
"You Isla?" she asks carefully.
I nod.
"I'm Maya. I've been here six months. Longer than any other human." Her eyes are haunted. "I need to tell you something about Kira. About why she really wanted you."
Something in her voice makes my blood run cold. "What?"
Maya glances around to make sure no one else is listening. Leans close. Whispers:
"Kira isn't trying to take over the Beastworld. She's trying to open a portal back to Earth. And she needs a Chosen's power to do it." She grips my arm hard. "But the portal requires a sacrifice. A human sacrifice. Someone the Chosen cares about enough that his power activates when they die."
My brain goes numb. "You mean..."
"She was going to kill you," Maya confirms. "Right in front of Draven. Use his white light at the moment of your death to tear open reality itself."
I can't breathe. Can't think. "But she ran away."
"Because she wasn't ready yet. She needs a special place—somewhere the barriers between worlds are thin. And she needs more power than what Draven showed." Maya's voice drops even lower. "There's another Chosen in the Beastworld. A female. Kira's been searching for her for months. If she finds her and combines their power with Draven's..."
"She could actually open the portal," I finish numbly.
"And kill dozens of humans doing it. The spell requires blood. Lots of it." Maya's eyes fill with tears. "I only know because I heard her talking to her second-in-command. She thinks we're all too stupid to understand the beast language. But I've been learning. Listening. Planning."
"Planning what?"
Maya's jaw sets with determination. "To kill Kira before she murders us all."
Before I can respond, Caspian swoops down from his scouting flight. His face is grim.
"We have a problem," he announces. "A big one."
"What now?" Draven asks tiredly.
"The other Chosen. The female one Kira's been searching for?" Caspian's voice shakes. "She's not a myth. She's real. And she's coming here."
"How do you know?" Silas demands.
"Because I just saw her." Caspian looks at me with something like awe and terror mixed together. "She's leading an army of a thousand warriors. Straight toward us. And she's flying a banner with one message written in human letters."
"What does it say?" I whisper.
Caspian swallows hard. "It says: 'Bring me the human named Isla Rose or I burn this entire territory to ash.'"
The cave goes silent.
Twenty pairs of eyes turn to stare at me.
And I realize with horror that I've become exactly what I feared: not the savior who brings civilization to the Beastworld.
The spark that's going to burn it all down.