A Shade of Vampire 84 A Memory of Time - Bella Forrest Page 0,16
come for the Master of Darkness and the two Whips accompanying him. The Master smiled, while Eliana tried to catch her breath.
“I’m here,” she said. “Be done with it already. My parents are coming.”
My heart sank as I put two and two together. “Mira and Kemi…”
“I’m surprised you made it,” the Master said. He had sharp cheekbones, his long blond hair making him look almost angelic. Beneath his appearance, he was rotten to the core. “I’m surprised you decided to listen, Eliana. Your stubbornness usually gets the better of you.”
“Too many people are dying. If I’m the cause, then stop me. I will die to save them all,” Eliana declared.
“Oh no. You’re buying into their lies,” I whispered. There was nothing I could do to prevent any of this from happening. This had already taken place two million years ago. There was no way to change the past. All I could do was witness it.
“Eliana, no!” Mira screamed from below. Feet thudded on the stone steps as she tried to get to her daughter before it was too late.
“You are doing the Aeternae a grand favor, Eliana,” the Master said, raising his scythe. “You shall be buried a heroine. Glory shall be yours in death.”
The Whips sneered by his side, their eyes twinkling with excitement. Outside, the city was dying. Blood drenched the streets of Roano. In here, the Darklings were going ahead with their plan, maintaining the cycle that the Spirit Bender had established long ago—an endless stream of lies and suffering from which he had profited the most.
Eliana exhaled sharply, her eyes wet with tears as she stood tall and proud. The scythe came down, and her head fell off with one swift blow. I gasped, feeling my throat close up. I watched as Mira and Kemi made it to the top and found her still form. The Whips vanished, using death magic to teleport themselves away. The Master, however, stayed to rub it in.
“I told you she’d do it,” he said.
Mira was devastated. Instantly in tears, she knelt before Eliana’s body. Her lips quivered as she struggled to make sense of it all. Kemi was livid, his eyes wide with horror as his gaze bounced between his daughter’s head and the Master.
“You… you killed our daughter,” he managed, shaking like a leaf. His muscles twitched, and I could almost see the rage engulfing him, lava flowing through his swollen veins as he took an attack stance. “You bastard! We were helping her, Endymion! We were helping her remember!”
“She would’ve set us all free.” Mira sobbed, no longer able to stand. “She would’ve ended this. You monster…”
Endymion scoffed, unafraid and anything but repentant. “You don’t understand. Most of us enjoy the idea of living forever. And you don’t get to decide when it is all over. You don’t get to end it. The cycle must continue. The Unending shall be reborn, and next time it’ll be someone else’s child we have to kill. But the Aeternae will live on. Once again we’ve stopped the Black Fever from destroying us all. It’s been a good day.”
“You killed our daughter,” Kemi repeated.
“And like I said, I’ll kill someone else’s son or daughter next time,” Endymion replied. “I will do whatever it takes to maintain our glorious empire, to preserve our species, to put eternity in our hands.”
“It’s not right. It was never right!” Mira croaked, her shoulders slumping.
“You didn’t mind it for the first million years though, did you?” Endymion shot back. “It was only when you got tired that this became an inconvenience. Well, you know what, Mira? I’ll make sure you never die. I’ll keep you all alive until you’re desperate to end it, and even then I will deny you that release. Maybe then you’ll understand why the Darklings’ path is the righteous one, and yours is only based on this infantile delusion that you can actually free the Unending. You can’t, Mira. No one can.”
“That’s a lie!” Kemi snarled. He lunged at Endymion, but the Master slipped to the side, practically gliding across the floor. Kemi nearly threw himself out the window by accident, but Mira was quick to grab him in time. “The Spirit Bender locked her here. There has to be a way out for her!”
Endymion laughed. “If there is, you won’t be the ones to find it. I’m afraid your time in our society has come to an end.”
Mira and Kemi stilled, confused. “What are you talking about?” Mira asked.