A Shade of Vampire 84 A Memory of Time - Bella Forrest Page 0,8

Maya, but she shook her head. I knew what that meant. “You wouldn’t be able to find him, huh?” She shook her head again. “Would he be able to find you?” She nodded this time. There had to be a considerable distance between Maya and Sidyan for that to be the case.

Either way, we were pretty much stuck here, waiting for Sidyan and Lumi’s return. Should the unimaginable happen, should I be forced to leave this place before my friends came back for me, I knew I could count on Maya. But it wasn’t a very comforting thought, because I’d be out but left without a sense of direction.

I’d find my way back to Sofia eventually. I knew that. But time was of the essence and finding Sofia and the others on my own would take precious hours I simply did not have. In the end, I’d have to be ready for anything while hoping for the best. It was a loathsome scenario, and I had no control over its parameters. I’d been left at the mercy of fate.

And she was never a good companion.

Tristan

Once we were outside the Darklings’ range, our positions shifted within the tunnel. We were no longer running but rather walking. About fifty miles ahead, Lumi and Kailani were leading the charge, opening the tunnel further, while the Seniors aided with the infrastructure. They’d already run out of iron and wood to use for the support system, but the bowels of the earth were generous with large rocks, which the Seniors used instead. This was an incredible feat we’d accomplished in the span of mere hours, and I was astonished by the grandeur of our collective effort, considering the circumstances. We were opening and extending a tunnel that would’ve taken much longer to build in less stressful conditions, but the Word’s power was coming through for us on a whole new level—on top of that, we had two hundred highly skilled and exceptionally strong Senior Aeternae helping. That clearly counted.

The farther west we got, the harder the ground and the easier the Seniors’ job, since the tunnel was gradually becoming self-sustaining and no longer at risk of collapsing over us. Ridan, Amane, and Amal stayed with Kalla and her people while the rest of our GASP crew followed close behind them.

Sofia kept Thayen close, flanked by Rose and Caleb. Hunter walked behind them with Trev, Esme, Kalon, and the Visentis boys. Behind them, Trev still herded the Vision horses.

The Soul Crusher, the Night Bringer, and Kelara helped teleport the Orvisians across short distances, just so they’d remain at the front, where they were better protected in case of a surprise attack. It was the best we could do for them until we left the Darklings’ range completely. We’d discovered early on that they’d used a different kind of teleportation blocking spell.

Esme occasionally glanced back at me, and I could tell that she was worried. We were all fleeing the worst kind of trouble—worried was our natural state of mind at this point. Seeley, Rudolph, and Nethissis stayed with Valaine and me, as did Morning and Phantom. The Reapers were able to teleport across smaller distances now, a sign that we were moving away from whatever death magic the Darklings had used to stop them in Orvis, so Sidyan and the Widow Maker frequently visited the surface to make sure we weren’t being followed. Sidyan couldn’t take Lumi out to get Derek until we got all the people to safety. Fortunately, that wasn’t too far in the near future, judging by the speed with which we were moving.

I found the blocking spell curious, nonetheless. It didn’t act like a circle that we had to get past, but rather a beacon whose intensity dimmed the farther we got from Orvis. Corbin must’ve considered the possibility of us tunneling out of there, after all, so he’d opted for the beacon-type blocker to make it as hard for us as possible to lose the Darklings. That meant we had a little bit more speed-walking to do before the Reapers could teleport us all into Roano.

“What are they doing up there?” I muttered, realizing they’d been gone for more than ten minutes this time.

“Throwing any followers off our tracks,” Seeley said. “We might be underground and quiet, but we all know the Darklings are resourceful. Until we get far enough away to be able to teleport across a larger distance, a little bit of death magic serves to distract the Knight