Page 115 of A Dusk Of Stars

Should I just make peace with the fact? That I’ve fallen for him?

Then again…

There’s something I can’t quite put my finger on, something that, when he said the words, made me snap out of it.

I shift my focus back onto Raven and Alaric, who are discussing what to do after breakfast. It makes a smile tug at my lips, how carefree they look.

I glance around the cafeteria, pausing in the moment to feel the gratitude for the fact that everything seems fine. Exceptfor the fact that my wolf still won’t speak to me, everything’s… ordinary.

And ordinary’s great.

So I guess I’ll just keep training, working on the ritual and keeping my fingers crossed that I never have to use it. Who knows, maybe I’ll even manage to pass all my exams.

It makes the smile slide off my face, when I start noticing people around me stirring. Everyone seems to be whipping out their phones all of a sudden.

My ears prick up, my eyebrows pulling down. I exchange a look with Raven and Alaric.

“What’s going on?” Alaric asks just as I notice more and more people getting up to leave the cafeteria.

This dread creeping up on me, I get out of my chair and rush after them. I sense my friends follow.

We stop in the Entrance Hall, where all the screens hanging above our heads are showing the same footage.

For a second, we just stare at images of people dead in the streets.Lotsof different streets.Lotsof people. Then someone remembers to switch the sound on and an official female voice booms from the speakers around us, caught in the middle of the sentence. “...and the Authority, who are saying there isn’t a single person left alive in the entire city.”

The woman keeps talking, but the shocked murmurs coming from all around me drown her out.

I spot one of the landmarks on one of the images showing on TV. Wawel Castle? “Warsaw,” I breathe out.

I sense Raven’s eyes on my profile.

“Anna,” I hear Alaric ask in a tense voice, “isn’t that one of the locations?”

“It is,” I reply, still not taking my eyes off the screen. “I guess Lorcan was right. We managed to miss something there.”

Last time, it was thirteen people. This time, it’s close to two million.

And now there are the breathlessness and the ringing in my head, and I feel myself start to move, although where, I’ve no idea.

“Anna…”

“Where are you going?”

I hear them, but it’s like the ringing is making me forget who they even are or where and whoIam. I lower myself onto the floor. Then the ringing intensifies, until it stops, and there’s only darkness and silence all around me.

Until I hear the knock.

***

The darkness around me is deep and all-encompassing. I hold my hands out, but there’s nothing around me. Just the sense of stone radiating coldness.

From that cold darkness, shadows tear away and I find myself backing away, trying to scream without any sound coming from my mouth.

I stumble onto something, falling face first but never landing.

There’s a flash of light, just long enough for me to see what I’m about to hit. A sea of dead people, skin sagging and eyes hollow.

My throat tightens. Desperately I try to summon the light, but I just keep falling, waiting to be swallowed by the corpses.

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