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Felix once told her that compassion killed.
"It's a weakness," he'd scolded after he cleaned up a mess that Sage had created. A boy had escaped from her grasp while she was hunting, his eyes innocent, and her heart easily swayed. "If you feel compassion, you allow people to get into your mind. That is how they destroy you. That is how you are killed. Do you understand?"
Sage had. But she had known what her brother said, and he said compassion was light. It was beautiful and pure, and it helped people when they needed it the most.
Compassion was what saved.
Sage found herself on the outskirts of a forest. There was no knowledge of it except that it was far away from civilization and far away from Elis. It had taken four hours to run to.
Emerald vines were pushed out of the way as Sage crunched her way into the darkened cave that awaited her. Her cloak was still soaked, and she pulled it off of her and threw it against the ragged stone wall. A sigh came out of her lips, and she clenched her eyes shut, wondering if she truly did experience what hell on earth had been.
Elis didn't remember her. That was a fact. When his eyes found hers, recognition was not found within the amber irises. Suspicion was laced in there, and Sage thought maybe he resented her, too. There was a bitterness in him that reminded her of the cold reality in which she killed Irina, one of his vampires. She had forgotten about it, too used to killing without thought, without remorse.
Her hand smacked against the cool wall as Sage threw her head back in frustration. Truly, she was stuck, now. There was no Volturi to return to, and Elis did not care for her. She was at a loss here.
Never had she been on her own without orders. When she was a human, she worked because she needed to survive. Pure instincts drove her. When she was with the Volturi, someone had a hand in how she acted; it was never through her own volition.
Now, she was alone with her thoughts, no one to order her around, and she had lost a battle against bloody wolves because Elis favored them, apparently.
Thunder cracked in the distant, and Sage sagged against the cavern, watching the shadows flicker on the wall each time lighting crackled. Another storm was coming.
Sage felt like she was already caught in her own storm, one that raged inside of her.
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The fire she lit for herself was only to dry her cloak. There was no reason for it to smell horrendous once it finally became dry. Wood cracked and snapped, embers falling onto the ground, leaving black soot marks in its place.
Night had fallen long ago, and Sage had been in one spot for the duration of it. Her legs were curled into her chest, her arms wrapped around them comfortably. For the first time in her vampire life, her head pounded, and she had no clue as to why. It was as though Jane had wrapped her gift up in a tiny mallet and stuffed it into Sage's head.
