A few days had passed since Aildris woke up confused, his mind filled with countless questions but not a single plausible answer. During this time he had avoided leaving the house as much as he could.
The possibility that someone was stalking him felt unnerving. He hadn't gone out to train with his sword, not like he had one anymore.
Moments after he had woken up that day he checked the weapon just to see its silver blade was riddled with cracks. He might have realised this sooner if not for the pain that had clouded all sense of reasoning at the moment. The loss of the weapon had gnawed at him, but also intensified his dread of whatever owned those crimson eyes.
The silver sword had been a gift from his father, a blade meticulously forged by one of the best swordsmiths Nova had to offer. The material used for its blade was one of the hardest metals that existed in this day and age, but still it cracked under the pressure of whatever had attacked him.
Aildris had never been much of a dreamer to begin with, but now whenever he closed his eyes he saw them, a bright crimson fire that burned within, a territorial gaze that made his skin crawl. Because of this he had avoided the mountains like a plague.
But the question now was, would he still keep this up when the main reason he had made this trip had finally arrived?
Yes. He would.
No matter what he was determined to see the lights, they were a part of his mother's memories.
A part where she was truly happy.
He wore a thick black hoodie and stared at the sun's retreating light that welcomed its darker twin, nightfall.
Subtle signs of the aurora borealis could already be seen, he couldn't miss it. He sighed and turned around, it was time to leave.
****
The night came cold and sudden. The moon's milky glow wrapped around the landscape like a blanket, covering the mountains and glistening the river.
Frederick sat on the rocky ground, his gaze fixed on the sky, the faint fragments of the aurora borealis had become more prominent but still hadn't reached the peak of its beauty.
The cold wind grazed his face and blew his hair backwards, thoughts seemed to sway with it.
After his encounter with the deceased bodies he had been trailing after the rogue vampire. He had checked all the noble vampires and none of them matched the physique.
The vampire had gone on a killing spree, mostly targeting the slum dwellers. Wherever it went a trail of two or three bodies were left in its wake.
Whispers of a dark shadow had already begun spreading around like a quiet myth.
Frederick had to admit, to an extent the vampire was smart. Horrible as it was, the people it had murdered weren't social figures. They would hardly have been remembered if missing.
It felt completely frustrating, no matter how he tried, no matter how he calculated. The vampire was always out of reach, not that it was smarter, just relentlessly cautious. There was no pattern.
It never hunted at the same location twice, the slums covered a lot of landmass making its location unpredictable.
Most rogue vampires had a preference, this one didn't. Today it could be a scrawny kid and tomorrow it could be a fat old lady.
So searching for a predator that had a wide hunting range and zero preferences just made him the cleaner after the hunt.
A hand ran through his hair, he was frustrated. He felt the rocky ground beside him vibrate slightly. He glanced to his side and noticed a tall blonde woman sitting to his right.
He remembered her.
"Lord Frederick, hope you don't mind?" she asked.
Frederick retracted his gaze and replied.
"Drop the lord, our ages aren't too far apart".
"But still your talent outshines mine" the blonde replied, her soft voice almost a whisper.
"Teresa, is it?".
" Yes. Teresa." the blonde woman answered.
After this no one spoke, a brief silence lingered in the air. They both just enjoyed the quiet that came with each other's company.
Well, the silence didn't last long.
"Lord Frederick, if I may ask what is the main purpose of the aurora event, was it entirely necessary to leave Noxvalis?"
Frederick, about to retort and remind her about dropping the 'lord' , stops mid-sentence and sighs before giving her an answer.
" The aurora event is one of our society's oldest and most respected traditions. According to our history, it originated during the reign of the second generation clan kings over the vampire society. The clan kings at the time felt that sooner or later their addiction to human blood would be the cause of their downfalls."
Frederick paused, the attentive focus in Teresa's golden eyes displayed her immense focus.
"So they being vampires, a curse enacted from the sins of other worlds with an innate instinct to dominate created the aurora event. They would surround themselves with the prey that they desired most just to confront and control the instincts that came with their bloodlust"
"They aimed to make their lust for blood an inutile asset to their existence" Teresa commented, cutting Frederick mid sentence.
Fredrick smiled at her comment. "Correct, only the whiff of a human's scent and the sound of their beating heart could send one of ours into a frenzy."
"Earth has always been a temptress to our kind and only the weak yield to her taunts".
At the end of the discussion Teresa felt like she had entered a whole new realm of enlightenment because as mundane as it would seem, the aurora event was aimed at suppressing the instincts that made them mindless savages at the sight of human blood.
Staring into space she had a nagging feeling that something wasn't right, her clan possessed a close affinity to the space element and currently the space around them felt distraught.
Then she felt it, a ripple. Something was headed in their direction.