All Chapters of The Art Of Dying : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

AXEL'S POVDawn broke over Dracula's Castle, which was ironic considering vampires were supposed to hate sunlight. But this wasn't real dawn. Just another illusion in a world built on lies.Six days. That's all we had left before the administrators broke through Dracula's defenses. Six days to prepare for the most dangerous mission of our afterlives. Six days to turn ourselves from survivors into warriors."Everyone up!" I called through the recovery room. "Training starts now."Groans answered me. Brady buried his face in his pillow. Marcus pulled the blanket over his head. Even the twins, who were usually disciplined, looked reluctant to move."I said UP!" I yanked Brady's blanket off. "The administrators aren't going to wait for you to feel rested. Move!"That got them moving. Slowly, but moving.Mia was already awake, sitting on the edge of her bed. She looked exhausted, dark circles under her eyes. I knew she'd been up most of the night trying to reach her power. Trying and fail

WILLOW'S POVI couldn't sleep. Again.Every time I closed my eyes, I was back in that room. The one with the mahogany table and the crystal chandelier and the family that wanted us dead.Walter was asleep in the bed across from mine, his breathing steady and even. But I could feel his dreams. The nightmares that plagued him every night since we died. The weight of guilt that never left him.Twin intuition, people called it when we were alive. But it was more than that. We could feel each other's emotions like they were our own. His pain was my pain. His fear was my fear. And his guilt, God, his guilt was crushing.I got up quietly and walked to the window. Dracula's Castle grounds stretched into the artificial night, peaceful in a way that felt wrong given everything we'd been through.Twenty rounds. We'd survived twenty rounds of this nightmare before joining Axel's team. Twenty worlds of death and horror and betrayal. And through it all, Walter and I had one rule: survive together

MARCUS'S POVI was tired of being useless.Every training session, every fight, every close call, I was the one people had to protect. The liability. The kid who got lucky enough to tag along with actual fighters.Today was supposed to be different. Today which might be my last training session before we left for the core , and I was determined to prove I belonged on this team.The problem was, I had no idea how.Mickey had me in the training room, running drills. Basic combat stuff. Dodge, block, counter. I was getting better, sure, but better wasn't good enough. Not when we were about to march into the most dangerous place in the afterlife."Again," Mickey barked. He came at me fast, claws extended.I dodged left. His claws whistled past my face, close enough that I felt the breeze."Faster."We went again. And again. And again. By the twentieth repetition, I was exhausted, covered in sweat, and no closer to feeling like I could actually contribute."You're thinking too much," Mick

MIA'S POVThe training room shook.Not from anything we were doing. The entire castle trembled, chandeliers swaying, dust raining from the ceiling. It was the third tremor today, each one stronger than the last."Again?" Brady asked, steadying himself against the wall. "That's like the fifth time this morning.""Sixth," Walter corrected, not looking up from the map he was studying. "And they're getting more frequent."The tremor passed, but the unease remained. Something was wrong. We could all feel it.Dracula appeared in the doorway, his expression grim. That alone was alarming. In all our time here, I'd never seen him look concerned."Conference room," he said. "Now. All of you."We exchanged glances and followed him through the castle's winding corridors. The walls themselves looked different, almost translucent in places, like reality was wearing thin.The conference room was dominated by those mirrors, the ones that showed different game worlds. Except now, most of them were dar

AXEL'S POVIt was a nightmare watching Mia wake up not knowing who I was. After seeing the terror in her eyes when she looked at me like I was a stranger. Like the ninety-nine years I'd spent alone meant nothing compared to the hours she'd forgotten me.Dracula had fixed it. Helped her stabilize. Brought her memories back piece by piece until she remembered my name, my face, the way we'd fought through hell together.But something had changed. I could see it in her eyes. A distance that hadn't been there before. Like she was standing on the edge of a cliff and one wrong step would send her tumbling into the void.I couldn't stop replaying the moment she'd looked at me with empty recognition. So I did what I always did when my thoughts got too loud.....I walked.The castle at night was a different beast. Shadows moved independently of their sources. Whispers echoed from empty rooms. But I'd been here long enough to know which sounds were threats and which were just the castle's natural