A Shade of Vampire 77 A Fate of Time - Bella Forrest Page 0,18

some miracle Taeral finds a way to save us, I hope we can all agree to never speak of this moment ever again."

Zane nodded. "You have been the greatest friends a daemon like me could ever wish for. I hope to see you on the other side."

Saying goodbye was the single most difficult thing I'd ever had to do. I had always known it to be a hard moment in one's life, but I'd never thought I'd deal with it myself. At least I still had Caspian by my side, to hold me up and keep me going.

From this point onward, our fates depended on Taeral. I trusted him to stop at nothing until he found Death, so I found comfort in hoping that this wouldn't end in tragedy, that the Fire Star prince would find a way to defeat the Hermessi before it was too late.

I wasn't ready to say goodbye to my friends yet. I could nod and pretend, but that was it.

Sofia

"I feel horrible for doing this," I said.

"There isn't enough room on Earth for everyone, you know that," Derek replied, his voice low and calm as we both stood by The Shade's portal, waiting for more GASP agents to come through from Neraka.

Gazing beyond the portal's stone frame, I found a sense of relief in the presence of Tebir and the other Hermessi of Earth. They'd manifested as colorful, fiery figures, offering to protect the portal from unwanted elementals while we transferred all the willing GASP agents back to The Shade. I knew not all of them would choose this path. Some would've rather stayed back on their home planets, with the people they'd known their whole lives, until the very last minute of their existence, and it was a decision we had to respect.

But even so, I hated having to organize such a protocol to begin with. I wished we could've just brought everyone out of the Supernatural Dimension and the In-Between, and into The Shade. Alas, our haven—not to mention the entire planet—was too small for such an ambitious endeavor, and time wasn't on our side.

"If we take some people off a planet, it will be unfair to the many others left behind," Corrine chimed in. She'd joined us earlier, along with Ibrahim, Vivienne and Xavier, and Rose and Caleb. I’d left Mona and Kiev as additional support for the Hermessi children. We’d needed seniors there as well. "And we certainly can't do that, as far as the civilians are concerned. Our agents, on the other hand, we can pull them back and use them for The Shade's defenses. Chances are we’ll need them."

"Choosing who to save will always be a tough one," Ibrahim added. "You either save everyone on a planet, or no one. At least, that's how I see things. Sacrificing the commoners to rescue the elite or the scientists or the more brilliant minds of a civilization is rather cruel. It's like saying the others don't matter."

"The best we can do is bring our GASP people back, for the time being," Derek said. "With a little bit of luck, we'll only have to formulate an apology to the civilians we left behind, later—"

"Oh, rest assured, they'll understand," Xavier replied. "If this whole ritual insanity happened here, and In-Betweeners and Supernaturals had to take their soldiers out of here and leave us behind… well, it would be a hard pill to swallow, but I wouldn't hold it against them. The odds are stacked against every civilian in the Hermessi's radius, I'm afraid. And they know it."

"This is the best we can do, I know," I murmured. "It still sucks."

"It will never stop being terrible, Mom," Rose said. "But in times like these…"

I nodded slowly, well aware of what she was going to say. I'd told myself the same thing a million times over by now. It didn't make me feel any better. Then again, the truth rarely had that effect on people.

"Thank you for being here," I said to Tebir. I meant it, too. "Your support is priceless."

The green fire figure bowed with reverence. "It is the least we could do. I imagine Brendel and her cohorts are too busy hunting Taeral and Thieron to bother with this portal, but, nevertheless, it's better if we're here to make sure they don't tamper with this evacuation."

"The last thing we need is a hostile Hermessi infiltrating The Shade again," Ibrahim said, disgust skewing his lips. He'd taken Brendel's intervention against Sherus quite personally—not that