Page 42 of The Crimson Walls Of Algorath

The blade moved slowly, precisely, across her back. Each stroke had tried to heal, but he smeared salt into each wound as he created it, forcing it to slow.

“When they found the priestess,” Ehrun said, his breath sweeping across her skin, “they strung her up before bloodthirsty masses on our own sacred tree and tore her apart, limb by limb.”

Each word etched itself into her back as surely as the knife. They sounded so far away, like someone entirely different heard them and experienced the agony.

“Do you know who they were, princess?” he had paused to whisper in her ear as he stroked her hair back from her face. Her own warm blood smeared across her cheek. When she did not respond right away, he grabbed her face and forced her to look at him. “Tell me.”

“Vampires,” she had gasped, cheeks smarting from the firm pressure.

“Good girl.” He patted her cheek, then returned to cutting.

Ariadne had never spoken about Ehrun’s history lessons to anyone. She never learned more about the dhemon priestess or what happened after her death. Until recently, she had been so blinded by hate, she did not care.

Now, as she ran through the trees of the estate, shame washed over her. For over one hundred and fifty years, she was fed the same horrible rhetoric that dhemons were the enemy. They were the killers. The greedy ones who had begun the war with the vampires upon their arrival in the Keonis Valley to keep the resources to themselves. She had been told that when the Caldwells first made Monsumbra their home, they had done so peacefully. Until the dhemons began attacking.

She was not so certain of that anymore. Not if what Ehrun had told her had even an ounce of truth to it. And though she shuddered to think that anything that terrible man had said was honest, she had to consider the possibility.

A shadow passed overhead, blotting out the moonlight streaming between the overlapping tree canopy. Ariadne slowed to a halt to watch the dark silhouette drift away. She had seen something similar during her ride back from Camilla’s estate months ago. At the time, she had thought it to be a bird, but now…now she realized it to be something different and far too large to be an owl.

Checking over her shoulder for Kall, Ariadne’s pulse quickened. Whatever it had been was circling in to land nearby. Surely everyone would have seen it.

She started after the shadow, the possibilities running rampant through her mind. Perhaps the mages had bred a new creature for travel. Or maybe the avians had flying mounts she had not heard of before.

Ariadne cursed herself for not paying closer attention to her governess’s lessons as a child. Her sister would know, certainly. Ariadne had had the tendency to hide romance novels behind her history books to read about faraway princes saving their true loves from imminent danger.

Voices rose in a clearing ahead of her, and Ariadne slowed to a creeping pace. The trees thinned enough to get a look at who stood beyond: dhemons she recognized from her first night at the Caldwell Estate, including Whelan.

They did not give her pause, however, the same way the creatures with them did.

Two massive, scaled beasts stood behind the group of dhemons. One with blue scales so dark, she mistook them for black at first and large eyes the color of honey. A row of black spikes ran from the top of its head, down the length of its back, and to the spaded tip of its tail. Four thick legs ended in claws large enough to pick up a horse bent to bring the huge body closer to the ground. From behind its shoulders, membranous wings tucked in tight as though it was overly conscientious of its size.

The second beast, much like the first in height, glinted emerald green in the low light. It varied from the first in that it appeared thinner and more agile. The solid black eyes gave it a menacing appearance and made it difficult to track where it held its attention. Its wings seemed to shimmer in the moonlight as it, too, tucked them in close and laid its head on a giant clawed foot.

Gods. What beasts did these dhemons have as pets? They could not be creatures of this plane but monsters from the Underworld. Keon must have had a hand in creating such imposing figures, just as he had with the dhemons.

And if Whelan stood amongst them, that meant he either hid them from Madan…or Madan, and therefore Azriel, knew of their existence and kept them from her.

The green beast shifted, dragging her attention to it again. Its nostrils flared as it unfurled its long, graceful neck to extend the massive, spiked head high above them. Those depthless black eyes narrowed, and a low, chittering growl quaked from it.

In an instant, the dhemons quieted, and all turned to look at her.

Ariadne froze. She held her breath as though it would keep them from her in the dark—as though she had not already been discovered by the green beast. Her heart thundered in her chest as one of the dhemons stepped forward, a hand on a knife at her side, but Whelan stepped before his comrade and said something she could not make out.

A heavy hand landed on Ariadne’s shoulder. She gasped and twisted out from under the hold to aim a punch at the adversary.

Madan narrowly dodged the strike, Ariadne’s fist clipping his ear as it whistled by. He pivoted aside, and she pulled her hand back into place beside her head as he’d seen Kall teaching her for hours on end the last few nights. Her long, dark braid swayed with her movement, brows low in concentration. He lifted his amputated arm high to cover the side of his face in case she came at him again.

Then recognition flooded her blue eyes, and Ariadne dropped her hands.

“Unconscious.” He tapped her jaw, a grin spreading across his face. “You let your guard down too quickly.”

Her fist slammed into his gut, and he doubled over as she said, “So did you.”

“Well played,” he wheezed, nodding, and straightened back up. “What are you doing out here?”

“I went for a run.”

“Where’s Kall?”

---