A Shade of Vampire 84 A Memory of Time - Bella Forrest
Sofia
“Valaine!” Corbin’s voice rumbled through the Nightmare Forest, cold and demanding.
Esme groaned in frustration. “He won’t stop.”
For the past twenty minutes, we’d been staring at the considerable army of Aeternae soldiers, Crimson guards, Darklings, and Knight Ghouls that Corbin Crimson, Master of Darkness, had brought to the north gates of Orvis. The Darklings had occupied Dieffen as a ploy to draw our people there, so they could attack them and follow anyone who happened to survive the unexpected insurgence. Fortunately, the entire crew had returned alive, though Ridan was still nursing some of his Reaper scythe wounds. Unfortunately, the Darklings had been able to track them, thus reaching the protective shield that Lumi and Kailani had cast over Kalla’s village.
At almost the very same moment, Derek had broken the green bead, signaling he was ready for an extraction—whether that meant he was in immediate danger, we didn’t know. But the Darklings had blocked the entire area around Orvis with death magic, and our Reapers couldn’t teleport themselves out of here. We had no way of reaching Derek until we got out of the death magic’s range.
The protective shield itself was not capable of withstanding powerful Reaper spells—of which the Darklings had plenty—for long, and neither were any of us. Our only option was to evacuate, but even that was an awfully tricky scenario.
“He’s hoping to bring down my defenses, brick by brick,” Valaine murmured, unable to take her eyes off her father. The man she’d trusted her whole life, her protector, had turned out to be the very man leading the charge against her. In many ways, Valaine and Thayen shared a few crucial things in common—the young prince’s mother was a Darkling Whip, a sociopathic opportunist who was working hard to convince an entire empire that hers was the right way, no matter how bloody.
“You’re not going out there,” Tristan reminded her.
“If I do, you’ll all be safe,” Valaine replied.
Kalla scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Corbin will never let us walk out of here alive. If there’s one thing I know about the Darkling leadership, it’s that they’re all spiteful bastards. You know that, too. Your memories should serve you well at this point.”
“I want to believe that my father isn’t beyond salvation.”
“But he is,” I said. “We can’t trust him. We can’t trust a single word that comes out of his mouth. Right now his sole purpose is to kill you, Valaine, so he can reset the cycle and keep this whole nightmare going for another ten millennia.”
Kemi came back from a quick tour of the village’s border, joined by the Soul Crusher and Kelara. “It’s not looking good,” the Senior Aeternae said. “They have Darklings and Knight Ghouls positioned all around Orvis, and they have canons ready to fire if we try to take the shuttles.”
“We can’t use the shuttles,” Kailani replied. “We’ve already established that. Our only way out is through an underground tunnel. Lumi and I can open one up, but we’ll need help holding the structure’s integrity to prevent the whole thing from collapsing and burying us all.”
“The Seniors will gladly assist with that,” Mira said, keeping her voice low. We were only about fifty yards from the northern entrance where Corbin and some of his most trusted lieutenants stood, unable to see us. Not sure how impervious the Aeternae’s ears were to swamp witch magic in this case, we all assumed there was a possibility that they might still hear us. So we did our best to keep out of earshot.
“We’ll get the villagers out first,” Seeley said quietly. “Kalla can lead that group. The witches will stay at the front with some of the Seniors to open the tunnel farther out. The rest of us will follow right behind the people of Orvis.”
“Some of us should also take care of the village itself and the shuttles,” Ridan added with a grunt, holding his side. Amane had an arm around his waist, holding him close. “Once the Darklings break through the protective shield, they’ll be looking for us.”
Lumi nodded. “One of the Reapers will seal the tunnel once we’re all a safe distance away.”
“We’ll have to blow the shuttles up, too,” I said, though my heart felt heavy at the thought of losing such precious magi-tech. We had no way of getting the vessels out safely, since the Darklings had learned to look for air ripples—a sign of movement beneath the invisibility spell. It was the one fault of this kind of Word magic and