A Shade of Vampire 84 A Memory of Time - Bella Forrest Page 0,13

originally anticipated. My symptoms were getting worse, as well.

“Oh no,” I whispered, my mind switching gears.

Tristan was stuck with Valaine. I wanted to save him, but I couldn’t touch him anymore. Kalon had already fallen under the Black Fever’s influence, and unless I got him as far away from here as possible, I’d lose him.

Grief threatened to tear me apart, but I found a sliver of strength somewhere deep inside me, and I hooked my arms under Kalon’s shoulders. Planting my boots firmly into the ground, I pulled him up and started backing away, my leg muscles twitching and burning under our combined weight.

Unable to take my eyes off Tristan completely, I witnessed everything that happened as I struggled to get Kalon out of harm’s way. The black smoke moved around my brother and Valaine, forming a strange ball, like a revolving planet. Morning and Phantom stared at it, their scythes out and glistening. Whatever this was, it was filled with rage and tears and approximately five million years of misery. It wouldn’t be easy to overcome.

“Kalon, hang in there,” I mumbled, my lips moving slowly.

I was growing sluggish. All the effort I’d put in was withering away, leaving my body frail and unable to react. The Black Fever had taken a firm hold over me, its symptoms settling in and sabotaging my attempt to at least save Kalon.

“No, please… no, just a little while longer…” I sobbed, tears rolling down my cheeks.

I landed on my back with Kalon’s upper body on top of mine, pinning me down. Lifting my head, I watched the black smoke dissipate, revealing my brother and Valaine. Tristan collapsed in front of her, his head resting in her lap.

“Tristan …”

A peculiar kind of warmth enveloped me. It tasted bitter, like surrender. My muscles softened. My bones gave out. My very soul broke as I witnessed the end. It was coming for us all, dark and infinite, inconsolable and wretched. Tristan loved Valaine too much to give up on her. Kalon loved me too much to watch me die. I loved Kalon too much to watch him die... The things we did for love were incredible and scary and baffling all at once.

I passed out, clinging to a twinkling thread of hope that maybe, just maybe, the universe might not give up on us. That it might reward us with salvation because the sacrifices made in the name of love were the noblest of all.

I fell into the darkness, feeling that hopeful thread as it slipped through my fingers, leaving me with nothing. An absolute and empty nothing.

Tristan

“I’m so sorry, Tristan.”

Valaine’s melodious voice was crystal clear in the middle of this vast nothingness. It wasn’t death. It wasn’t suffering, either. It was a familiar kind of limbo. I was tempted to worry about the physical world. I’d caught a glimpse of my sister crying and falling. Tree roots rotting and blackening. The darkness that had taken over Valaine was much stronger this time. It was different, too. More intense… weighing me down in a way it hadn’t in the past. I wanted to get back to the surface, but I understood that we were here for a particular reason.

Yes, she was having another episode, but this time it had taken us deeper, somewhere we’d been before. She’d triggered a trance state, and I didn’t have the time or the energy to wonder how she’d done it. All that mattered was that we were here, and we had to make the most of it before people on the outside died.

“Can you hear me?” I called out, though I had no sense of myself.

“Yes.”

“I can hear you,” I said. It was peaceful here, in the nothingness. I’d missed this feeling.

“I don’t know how we got here,” Valaine replied. “But I can’t see you.”

“Neither can I. I mean, I can’t see you or myself… it’s like I left my body out there in the real world.”

“That’s probably what happened.” Valaine sighed. “I’m hurting people, Tristan. How do I make it stop?”

It was a difficult question, with an equally difficult answer. There wasn’t a solution in sight—at least not one that might satisfy all our requirements. It broke me to have to tell her this. “Valaine, I don’t think you can make it stop. My guess is that we can only ride the wave and see where it takes us.”

“But your sister, Kalon… all those innocents out there…”

“Let’s see where this darkness leads us, Valaine. We must be here for