The wheel weaves as the wheel wills. Ali was up as well, though it was from being unable to sleep. Everytime he closed his eyes, he felt as if he was being watched. It was during the late hours of the night, just as Mave had her scare, that he sat in the empty common room. The lights were out, though the fireplace was still lit with a dying flame. The tall youth leaned against the hallway wall, lost in his own mind on the journey before them. Or maybe he was simply too tired to really have a coherent idea in his head. Whichever it was, it certainly left him open to what was about to happen next.

"I've been meaning to catch you alone." A harsh voice said as a strong hand grabbed his neck, the other pulling his arm behind his back before he could use his strength. Ali's warm body suddenly went cold from fear, but the hand on his neck squeezed when he panicked, causing him to wheeze. "Talk about some things man to man." He recognized the voice, and it came from someone about as tall as he. 

"Darius?" He gasped, trying to wrap his head around what exactly was happening. "Light, what are you doing?" 

"I told you, I just want to talk boy. You're a tough one to find, but easy to trick apparently." He whispered mirthfully, and didn't let go of Ali, prompting him to consider this more than a friendly scare amongst comrades. His mind was hazy from a lack of sleep and his held throat, but he focused and steadied himself, like his da had taught him when he was little when hunting deer. "You're pretty famous around a few circles I hang around. Does your little girlfriend know what you are?" 

"What?" He asked incredulously, threatening to lose the focus he desperately needed. "What do you mean, what I am?" 

"The boy with the dark red eyes..." Darius said cryptically. Ali found himself curious beyond belief, and yet his body moved even when his mind wanted him to fish for more information. He suddenly stomped on Darius's foot with his own booted heel, and just as the pain registered in Darius's mind, he drove his elbow into the big man's stomach. Instinctively the man's grip loosened. Ali managed to shove his arm aside and free himself from the man's grasp. Surprisingly, Darius sent a left hook, recovering almost immediately. Ali moved with the flame in his mind, ducking the blow as if he had expected it since that morning. 

"Bastard! I'll kill you and throw your body in front of the dark one himself! He'll make me an Emperor!" The man snarled, grabbing at the Emond's Fielder. Ali struck first, landing a punch to the spot he had elbowed, cracking a rib and weakening his foe. His next blow caught the man in the face and sent him to the ground, landing hard on the wooden panel of the floor like a dropped sack of flour.

"It's a bit hard to give edicts with a broken jaw." Ali said, clenching his bloodied fist. 

His steely eyed resolve was short lived when Darius drew out a small knife, barely a letter opener. But rather than use it on Ali, he gritted his teeth and stabbed his own neck. Ali's jaw dropped as blood gushed out of the wound like an opened cask of wine, and he could barely breathe out 'Blood and Bloody Ashes' before Darius was dead. The moments passed and he was frozen stiff in the hallway just above the body. 

[i]Move fool! Move![/i] He told himself, and he used every bit of willpower to leave the hall and go find Mave.