A Shade of Vampire 84 A Memory of Time - Bella Forrest Page 0,18

those round irises. The full, red lips. The rosy cheeks. It was Valaine, but it was also Eliana. The image of her shifted, and Eliana became someone else—an Aeternae man whose face I’d seen reflected on a surface somewhere in our past sessions. I’d found the core of Valaine, the sum of all the personas the Unending had been born into.

Some of them I didn’t know, while others felt familiar. I caught a glimpse of Valaine again, too. She kept changing, the images of her dancing before me like a kaleidoscope of past lives. Each of them looked at me. Each of them smiled and reached out. Each of them had been close to ten thousand years when they’d met their end at the hands of Darklings.

“You’re the one who’s going to set me free,” a strange voice said, the lips of the Unending’s past vessels moving all at once.

I was dazzled and speechless, trying to make sense of this vision. I had no control over it. Heck, I couldn’t even focus, the people multiplying and spreading before me like cards on a table. Eliana, Valaine, and everyone else she’d been since the Spirit Bender had first locked her in. I could only see it through.

“You’re the one who’s going to bring me back, Tristan. I can feel it,” the voice added, making my whole being hum with a mixture of curiosity and anxious worry.

It dawned on me then that it wasn’t Valaine saying this. Not anymore.

It was the Unending. She was finally making contact.

I’d found her.

Esme

I was in a dream, but it wasn’t the good kind.

It was a nightmare, and I was powerless to stop it. Darkness surrounded me. It blinded me, but it didn’t deafen me. I could hear everything. The screams of people fleeing from its path. The cries for help. The low hum of death approaching, filling the tunnel.

The tunnel.

My eyes peeled open. I was in the tunnel. This wasn’t a dream at all. It was reality, and it was catching up with me so fast, I had a hard time coping. I’d been thrown over Kalon’s shoulder. He ran as fast as he could, his breathing shallow as he carried me away from… “Oh God,” I managed, with a clear view of what was coming for us.

I couldn’t see Tristan or Valaine anymore. Phantom. Morning. Blackness had vanished them as well as it flooded the tunnel, spreading toward us, ravenous and itching to get us.

“Kalon, you were sick,” I croaked. “The Black Fever…”

“I still am,” he said, interrupted by a violent cough. It made me shudder. “But I came to, and here we are. How are you feeling?”

“Kalon, wait!” I tried to get down, but his arm held me firmly in place, hoisted over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I wiggled and squirmed, but he refused to let go. “I can run on my own!”

“No, right now you need to sit tight and pray it doesn’t catch up with us again,” he replied dryly, heaving as he struggled to reach the others.

I couldn’t see very well behind me, but I could hear everyone running, their boots rumbling across the hard ground. Children screamed. Their mothers were too busy fleeing for their lives to even comfort them.

“Kalon, is that… is that Valaine?” I asked, the view before me jiggling. The darkness was still coming, and it was horrifyingly fast.

“Yeah, it’s Valaine,” he replied. “She’s out of control. Everything is dying around her. You were out cold, I could barely breathe, but the farther we’re getting from her, the better I’m feeling. You?”

“The Black Fever. It’s coming out of her. Raw… untamed…”

“Exactly.”

“Tristan is still there with her, isn’t he?” I asked, though part of me already knew the answer. Tears stung my eyes as I narrowed them, struggling to see something through the gloom that was feverishly chasing us.

“I’m sorry, Esme. We can’t get to him. He’s too close to her.”

I remembered now. “Kalon, I think I can run on my own. You’re putting too much of a strain on yourself.”

“I’m okay. I just need to—” Kalon grunted in pain. He stumbled, and we fell, rolling on the ground.

He managed to pull himself back up, terror imprinted on his face as he looked at me. “It’s getting worse…” he managed.

The sickness was seeping into my bones and making it harder for me to breathe. He was right, and I could feel it.

“It’s not fair,” I whispered as my vision grew hazy. I didn’t want to