A Shade of Vampire 77 A Fate of Time - Bella Forrest Page 0,1

if the ritual is completed. I hate thinking about it as much as you do, but I'm pretty sure Derek and Sofia have already discussed it."

"Have you lost hope, then?" Varga asked me, his brow furrowed.

"No. But it looks as though Death has gone missing," I replied, tension building up in my throat. "I have to consider all the possibilities. I gave up on saving my own father to be here and… she's out."

Seeley cleared his throat. "I don't think she was planning for it. I would've heard something. She would've told me. I was always meant to escort you all back to Mortis once you got Thieron."

"Then where the hell is she?!" I snapped, too close to succumbing to despair, for my own sake. Eira squeezed my wrist, demanding my attention.

"It's not over yet," she murmured. "We still have a little bit of time."

Lumi walked over to the edge of the platform. "Can anyone see the spirits that used to haunt these woods?"

Amelia shook her head. “Not since the Reapers intervened after our first visit here,” she said, looking at Seeley. “Do you see anything?”

“No,” he replied, his concern obvious. Last time we'd been here, this entire area had been riddled with ghosts, spirits that Death had wanted to keep close. Whether for comfort or just a whim of solitude, I didn't know, but at least we'd felt like there were others around.

"You might’ve taken away our ability to spot them with a scythe, but you should at least be able to sense them. Do you? This place feels… empty, different from the last time we were here." Lumi surveyed the thick bamboo woods that guarded the waterfall platform. The thing with spirits was that we couldn’t feel them ourselves, but their presence had still made a slight difference in how we’d seen this place—as if we’d known, deep down, at least faintly, that we were being watched, that we weren’t exactly alone. Lumi was right. It felt lonely and barren, this time around.

"So, there’s nothing?" Amelia asked Seeley, as if to make sure, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"Nothing at all. Not a single spirit, Reaper… nothing," Seeley said.

"Just as I thought." Lumi turned to face us. "It's not just Death who went away. I think Mortis is quite literally empty."

I glanced at Phantom, Soul, and Widow, the three of them finally reunited after all those years. Seeley stood quietly next to them, his expression darkened by concern. "What do you make of this?"

Phantom shrugged. "Not much, if I'm honest. Like Seeley, I can't feel Death here."

"Then what the hell are we supposed to do?" Eira replied. "You said it yourselves, Brendel is coming for us."

Something thundered above us. We’d been so drawn into Mortis’s tomb-like silence that we’d not even noticed Kabbah coming down from the sky, his body glowing emerald-green. My pulse quickened at the sight of him.

“Took you long enough,” Eira muttered, prompting me to look at her in surprise.

“You knew he would find us here?” I asked her, as Kabbah landed smoothly in front of us, his back to the palace. The glow dimmed, leaving his hands alight, and his eyes burning green.

“Given our increase in strength, as Hermessi, per the ritual, I’m able to reach out to Eira, much like I would any of my brethren,” Kabbah said. I’d almost forgotten that the hostiles’ power wasn’t the only one growing. The rebels were reaching new levels of strength, as well.

“He sounded like a whisper in the back of my head,” Eira said. “He sort of already knew where we were going after what happened on Aledras, so… I just confirmed it.”

“That’s good,” I replied. “Your telepathic connection clearly comes in handy.”

“Where’s Brendel?” the Soul Crusher interjected, glancing at Kabbah.

"She's headed for Mortis," Kabbah said. I'd yet to get used to thinking of him as Kabbah, Nevertide's ancient Earth Hermessi, since he was still wearing Fallon. "I can sense her. She'll be here within the hour."

"What did GASP advise us to do?" Riza asked, staying close to Herakles.

We were all still recovering from the dream world in which Phantom had plunged us for the Phyla challenge. There were snippets of that life woven into reality, and there were moments where I was tempted to believe that Eira and I were a pair, that Eva and Varga were engaged… Phantom had certainly done a number on us.

But reality was much worse. In hindsight, I would've been inclined to stay in the dream world. It would've been