Page 58 of The Crimson Walls Of Algorath

A door opened ahead of them as though pushed with a phantom breeze. The room beyond was a small sitting area with an array of low-sitting furniture and pillows beneath a ceiling of windows. Stars twinkled overhead, though the sky had begun to lighten—the first signs for a vampire to find a safe place to hide from the sun.

“Your rooms.” Phulan nodded to the dual doors on the right, and they opened as though by a phantom hand. “Kall, you know where to go.”

The dhemon, quiet as ever, nodded his thanks and disappeared into the bedroom beyond. He would likely wash, then fall asleep as quickly as Ariadne planned to once she had her own bed to lie on.

Then the doors on the left opened. The room beyond was dark, lit only by more low blue lights. When Phulan showed her inside, Ariadne discovered there to be no windows at all. No view of the outside world. Just a dark room with four walls, a bed, and several sconces along the walls.

Like a cell.

Ariadne froze just over the threshold. She swallowed hard, the scars on her back almost prickling with all of her lessons.

“Are you alright?” Phulan had circled back around, lines creasing her brows. “I had this room built for Madan, but I figured you would make good use of it.”

“I…” What could she say? The thoughtfulness behind the gesture was unbelievably kind. Yet she stared at the shadows gathering in the corners and remembered the eyes. The hands. The bodies pressing in.

Sucking in a shuddering breath, Ariadne took several steps back into the sitting room. Into the threat of sunlight sure to break over the horizon any minute. It was so open, so freeing to be in that shared space. To be where she could see the sky—the stars and moon that had guided her for so many nights.

Again, Phulan’s eyes glittered. She tilted her head and pursed her lips before saying, “I understand. Perhaps I can help?”

The mage turned back to the room, and the blue lights flared to life, illuminating the space completely. With the brightness restored, Ariadne could better see the pattern of the quilt on the plush floor-level bed, the mound of pillows at the head, and the massive painting hung at the far side of the room depicting a field of wildflowers with a river winding through.

“Would you like the lights to remain on?” Phulan studied her. “Or would that keep you from sleeping?”

Ariadne thought back to all the days over the last year she had left the candelabra lit beside her bed. She had ceased needing the light only once she began sharing her bed with Azriel. He alone kept the shadows and memories at bay. With him gone again, she had taken to lighting the candles in Monsumbra.

“I can sleep just fine in the light,” she said with a small smile. “Though it could be a little more dim?”

The mage nodded, and the blue lights lowered. “Sleep. I will cover the windows in the sitting room as well. Please don’t hesitate to ask for anything.”

With that, Phulan was gone. Ariadne found a washing basin in the room once she closed the doors and, after removing her clothes, scrubbed the sand from her. She dried and pulled on the light shift laid out on the bed before sliding between the covers.

Sleep did not come easily. It eluded her despite the long nights as she tossed and turned, one hand always sliding across the broad expanse of the bed in search of the one person for whom her heart cried.

It did not take long for Ariadne to learn how few establishments came to life in Algorath after dark. Aside from Chax District’s back alley dealings, minimal music taverns, and booming trade in bodies, very little remained available for night-walking patrons. No wonder so few vampires, Caersans especially, visited the mage city. Unless they sought pleasure halls and drugs, there was nothing else to do.

So Ariadne threw herself into training with Kall in Phulan’s stone garden. With or without the city to explore, there was no better way to keep her mind occupied than moving. The more she moved, the less time she had to think. Thinking, after all, was dangerous. Thinking meant envisioning all the terrible things happening to Azriel. Thinking meant losing herself in that chasm of despair.

Without much of an explanation, Kall allowed her a small blade. Though excited about her upgrade at first, she soon understood why he withheld such tools for so long.

Dhemons, after all, did not heal as fast as vampires.

Thanks to Phulan’s endless skill at healing, Kall never suffered from a wound for long. It was only after the fifth time she drew the knife across his skin that she realized that had been his plan the entire time. It was also why Phulan remained nearby, sipping her drink of choice each night and watching them. The mage did not care for Ariadne’s training. She cared for her friend’s safety.

Until, of course, Ariadne approached her, dripping with sweat and shaking with nerves. The question she asked had not been what the mage expected.

“You want to train with me?” Phulan’s black eyebrows almost flew off her face as she peered at Ariadne over her cup of chai. “With magic?”

She raised her chin a bit and stood a little straighter from her place in the doorway to the garden. Kall leaned against the wall, sweat dripping down his face and arms crossed over his broad chest as he looked between them. They had spent the early waking hours training hard, as usual. When she had asked him his opinion on the matter, he had agreed that it would be wise. Physical strength and agility could not compete with a mage.

“I have heard time and again,” Ariadne said, “that Melia is dangerous. If she has enough power—politically and as a mage—to maintain her position as Desmo, then I need to know how to stand against her, should I need it.”

Phulan watched her as though she had grown two heads. She set her chai on the table and cautioned, “There is no preparing you for what Melia can do. Our magic is very different.”

Fear threatened to leech into Ariadne and crack her resolve. She hardly knew the woman but, like Kall, had decided to trust her as her husband would have. “Different how?”

“Mages are born with natural gifts.” Phulan stood and moved closer. “We’re all capable of harnessing any form of magic, but some come easier than others, and most mages choose to hone those natural skills rather than fight against the others in order to learn them.”

Ariadne had heard something of the sort before. Anything from elemental magic like the fae to battle magic most often utilized by sentinels to necromancy was available to mages. She did not understand them, so she waited for her new friend to explain further.

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