Page 67 of The Crimson Walls Of Algorath

For fear of holding on to hope, Emillie refused to allow herself to think on it again for the rest of the night.

After several nights in Algorath, Ariadne was met with more surprises. As she went to bid Kall and Phulan good day, the latter clucked her tongue and pointed to the chair beside her at the amethyst table.

Ariadne sat, her stomach twisting at what she could have possibly done wrong. She had not broken anything of value and drastically reduced the number of accidental wounds delivered to Kall.

“You have come to me on a mission,” Phulan said, sitting back in her chair and eyeing her. “I’m happy to help however I can, but you’ve been distracted by our sessions and your training.”

Her cheeks warmed. “I am not certain I am following.”

“How do you plan to save Azriel?”

Kall shifted in his chair. He had not been allowed to leave the property at all. If Melia or any of her people caught wind of another dhemon in Algorath, they were certain she would retaliate by doing something to Azriel. Or, worse, she would attempt to bait Kall into becoming another prisoner for her collection of Pit fighters. He was helpless.

But Ariadne was not. “I planned to speak with the Mair.”

With a shake of her head, Phulan doused the idea. “Mair Solt is as entrenched in the earnings from the Pits as the Desmos. You will not succeed through negotiation.”

“I have no way to get to Melia,” Ariadne said quietly, her fingers twisting at the leg of her trousers. “And no way to reach Azriel without her.”

“That, my dear,” Phulan said, setting something on the table between them, hidden beneath her palm, “is where you are wrong.”

When the mage removed her hand, Ariadne frowned. A strange stone the size of a gold coin sat between them, as pearlescent as the moon and yet…black. Like the darkest depths of the chasm within her. It shone with the colors of the rainbow in shifting light, beautiful and disquieting at the same time.

“What is this?” Ariadne leaned back from the large, smooth stone. It radiated with a wrongness she could not place.

A slow smile crept across Phulan’s pretty, ancient face. “This is called a Noct. There are few in existence, all cut from the same stone gifted by the gods a long time ago. It embodies the night.”

Still, Ariadne surveyed the Noct with uncertainty. It was rare for her to feel the magic of an item, yet this one almost seemed to pulse with it. “How will this help me?”

“It is the night itself, my dear.” Phulan winked at Kall, then continued, “The wearer of a Noct will be shrouded with its magic—night.”

A new rush of hope burst forth from the spring at the base of that chasm. Now Ariadne leaned toward the Noct. “Do you mean…I would be able to go outside during the day?”

Phulan’s smile turned solemn and sweet. “Yes. And no.”

“Explain.” She refused to allow herself the luxury of hope if it was to be quashed so easily.

“You’ll be able to withstand the sunlight without risk of aegrisolis,” Phulan confirmed. “However, it can only do so much. In Valenul, you could stand outside at midday in no clothes at all. Here in Algorath, however, you would be wise to keep your skin exposure to a minimum. No need to tempt the gods—or that nasty curse of yours.”

The curse. Ariadne did not think of her vampirism as such very often, though she knew it to be a fact of her life and that of every vampire. She had never felt it limited her until she arrived in Algorath. Her sister, on the other hand, had never loved the night. Emillie had thrived in the sunlight and always wished for a different outcome prior to her transition.

Of course, like all of them, she had no choice. Instead, Emillie went through the transition as they all did. Like Ariadne, she had grown insatiably hungry. She ate and ate all that was put before her, never seeming to find the end of her pit of a stomach. Then she fell into a slumber that lasted four days and nights. Though the length of sleep differed for every vampire, Caersans typically fell on the longer end than Rusans. When she woke, her body had ached, and she cried as she teethed, the fangs pushing out the solid canines below to make way for the hollows capable of draining blood. The final stage of the transition was the same for everyone—Caersans and Rusans, men and women—and it had been Ariadne’s turn to cry as they locked Emillie away in an inescapable room, just as Emillie had done for her. Unlike vampire men, the women were denied the ability to act upon their overwhelming sexual urges as they came of age. So instead, they were locked up like a prisoner so they may bid their days goodbye.

Until now.

Now Ariadne had the answer—the key to living whatever life she dreamed, be it in the light…or the dark. At least for as long as Phulan allowed it.

Yet Ariadne still looked up at the mage before her, offering this escape from the gilded cage in which she lived, and asked, “Are you certain this will work?”

The last thing she needed was to trust this legendary stone as truth and die of aegrisolis within the week. All her work would be for naught. She could not even consider what it would do to Azriel.

It was Kall, however, who answered. “Madan use many times.”

In an instant, the strange weight that had begun pressing in on Ariadne’s chest lifted. She had not known how heavy it grew until the moment it released, the tension easing from her muscles at the reassurance that her own brother had used the Noct.

“Oh,” was all Ariadne could think to say in response, and she finally reached out to the strange item.

To the touch, the Noct felt…wrong. If the pulse of magic from it had been any indication of what to expect, it had not been enough. Before she even picked it up, Ariadne could feel its heft. The very magic pressed into her touch as though it held a force pushing out from its center—shoving her away. Yet when she plucked it from the table and turned it over in her palm, it was but a feather’s weight.

---