The worst part? She couldn’t tell anyone. Especially not Cutie.

Every time she tried, something inside her chest choked the words back—something instinctive, refusing to let her speak.

So she stayed silent. Trained harder. Kept busy.

But the heat kept growing.

And Kaya knew she was running out of time.

And again something strange started happening.

The usual pain was still there—the heat burning in her chest every night—but now there was something else. Something that made no sense at all.

It happened one night when Kaya was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep because of the ache spreading through her ribs. She looked up at the stone above her and thought absently, ’I really want to touch it. Should I jump?’

But she didn’t move.

She didn’t have to.

Because suddenly—without warning, without effort—she started floating.

Rising.

Her body lifted off the mattress like gravity had simply forgotten she existed, and before Kaya could even process what was happening, before she could scream or grab onto something, her hand touched the ceiling.

The cold stone pressed against her palm.

Kaya’s breath caught in her throat, eyes wide, heart pounding so hard it drowned out everything else.

She turned her head slowly, looking down.

The ground was far. Too far.

The cave ceiling wasn’t like a normal house roof—these walls were high, carved deep into the mountain. Ten feet. Twelve. Maybe fifteen. And right now, Kaya was floating at the very top, pressed flat against the stone like she weighed nothing.

For a moment, she genuinely thought she was dreaming.

She bit down hard on her knuckle—teeth sinking into skin until blood welled up, sharp and metallic on her tongue.

Pain shot through her hand.

Real pain.

’This is not a dream.’

Her breathing quickened, panic creeping in. Then she remembered—there ’had’ been another time. Back in the capital, when she’d grabbed Cutie’s hand and they’d run. For just a moment, she’d felt weightless, like her feet barely touched the ground. But it had stopped so quickly she’d dismissed it as adrenaline, as imagination.

But this?

This was undeniable. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Kaya squeezed her eyes shut, trying to think. ’Okay. Okay. In those stupid magical movies, when the heroine gets powers, she just... wishes for it, right? Concentrates?’

She took a deep breath. "Go down," she whispered. "Go down. Go down."

Nothing happened.

"Go down!" she said louder, more desperate.

Still nothing. She stayed stuck to the ceiling like a fly on a wall.

"Damn it," she hissed under her breath. "Damn those bastards—"

She didn’t even know who she was cursing right now. The universe? Liam? Her own body?

Her mind raced with increasingly horrible scenarios. Tomorrow morning, Sparrow would fly in and find her stuck up here. He’d laugh until he couldn’t breathe. Then they’d have to tie a giant rock to her feet to keep her grounded. Or worse—someone would want to cut her open, figure out what she was, dissect her like some kind of experiment.

Kaya’s stomach twisted with dread as a thousand torturous possibilities flashed through her mind. Ropes. Nets. Chains. Being locked away. Being studied. Being—

Suddenly, she felt the soft mattress against her back again.

Her eyes flew open.

She was lying on the bed. Normal. Grounded. Like nothing had happened.

Kaya shot upright, hands grabbing the blanket, staring at the ceiling far above her.

’What the hell?’

Her heart was still racing, blood still dripping from her knuckle, proof that it had been real.

She’d floated. She’d ’flown’. And then somehow—without understanding how—she’d come back down.

Kaya pressed her hand to her chest, feeling the heat still pulsing there, steady and warm.

And for the first time, a terrifying thought settled in her mind:

Whatever was happening to her body wasn’t just pain.

It was power.

And she had no idea how to control it.

But one thing Kaya knew for sure—she was not going to tell Veer. Or anyone else.

She sat on the edge of her bed, staring at her bleeding knuckle, mind racing.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Veer. But it also wasn’t that she ’did’ trust him. She was somewhere in between, stuck in a gray area that made every decision feel like a gamble.

And she still remembered the last time.

Back in the capital, when she’d grabbed Cutie’s hand and they’d run—when she’d felt that weightless sensation, like her feet barely touched the ground. She’d mentioned it. Casually. Asked if they’d felt it too.

And that was the thing.

Normally, if something like that happened—if someone suddenly flew or floated or defied gravity—the reaction should be shock. Surprise. Fear. Confusion. Questions. ’Lots’ of questions.

But at that time? None of them had asked her anything.

Veer and Cutie’s expressions had been... knowing. Like they’d been waiting for it. Like it wasn’t strange at all. No shock. No curiosity. Just quiet acknowledgment.

Only Sparrow had seemed genuinely confused, squawking about air currents and bad footing.

And after she’d mentioned it, the power had stopped. Completely. Like talking about it had somehow made it disappear.

So Kaya knew one thing for certain: they might know something about this. About what was happening to her. About what she was becoming.

And she didn’t want to ask them yet.

She wanted to wait. Observe. Figure it out on her own terms.

Because what if this power was hers? What if it was something in the environment, the air, the beastman world changing her body? It had already changed a lot—her endurance, her strength, even the way she healed seemed faster now.

But this was different.

If this power was truly hers, then Kaya could understand why people might be coming after her.

But that raised another question: ’How did they even know about it?’

This wasn’t the modern world with phones, cameras, CCTV, internet tracking. This was a beast world. When Kaya first arrived here, she hadn’t seen another person for days. Meeting Cutie had been pure chance.

So how could someone just ’recognize’ her? It wasn’t like she was glowing with some magical halo or radiating power like a beacon.

And more importantly, there was nothing physically special about her appearance.

Her hair color wasn’t shocking. Her eyes weren’t unique. Kaya had seen the females here—they came in thousands of colors. She’d even seen women with pitch-black hair and black eyes who were so beautiful, so charming, so utterly stunning that Kaya felt plain standing next to them.

If she had to compare herself honestly? Average. Maybe if she dressed up, put effort in, she could stand equal to them. But when they stood without makeup and she stood ’with’ makeup, she was still just... normal.

No wings. No horns. No markings or special features that screamed ’different.’

So the question remained: How did they know?

And then another, darker question followed: Did Veer and the others know about this? Was that why they’d come after her in the first place?

Kaya didn’t understand. But in all of this mess, she knew one person was innocent.

Sparrow.

From the first time she’d met him, she could tell that damn idiot didn’t know anything and was just running around trying to survive. She could see it in his eyes—no hidden agenda, no secrets, just pure, reckless survival instinct.

But Cutie and Veer? They were hiding a ton of things. She could feel it.

’’’

From that day on, Kaya added one more thing to her routine.

After everyone else went to sleep—after she said goodnight and closed her door—Kaya started checking her body. Testing it. Pushing it.