What she found was the abandoned shack where Astrid had brought her for her first test. Relieved, she knew this meant she was on track to Morthal, and thought if she could get that far, to an inn, she could have a little food and maybe even find another potion or temple before the change overtook her.
Vampires, she thought. Boody hell.
But what she came to first wasn't Morthal but a flickering light through the trees that she mistook for a house. Coming up too quickly she surprised a mage and saw lightning at his fingertips before she held up her hands in surrender.
"Please! I'm not here to hurt you. I just… I just need some help."
She swallowed and hoped he hadn't heard the news from Solitude.
"Do you?" He leaned closer and she saw he was a Redguard. "You do indeed. I recognize a vampire when I see one."
"No!" Athene cringed back from the mage. She couldn't be so far gone already. She hadn't felt it, hadn't realized… "Not yet. You must have a potion to help me. Something, anything!"
"Shh," he said. "Do you want to bring the town down upon us?"
"What are you doing out here anyway?"
"None of your business. Although I have to admit, your current state is very much my kind of business. I am Falion. And I have a proposition for you."
She didn't want to say it, but Athene was thinking: Anything. Anything, just cure me.
"Turn," he said. "Let the transformation take place. Let me study you for just a few days, and then I'll restore your soul and you'll be human once more."
It was a horrifying idea. Be a test subject for this obviously cruel and possibly deranged magic user? Let herself become a monster for just a few days, just so he could what: poke and prod her? See what she wanted to eat? Who she wanted to eat? She shuddered and remembered that until the weakness had overtaken her she'd considered this. Considered becoming a vampire on purpose. Why hadn't she listened to Babette? She felt like her blood was going to burn through her veins, that her mouth was watering, seeing the long dark neck on the man in front of her. Oh, yes. He was human still, he breathed and his heart beat, and she could hear the blood–lovely, salty, normal blood–as it rushed through him. She bit her lip and tasted metal. She wanted to leap on him and push him to the ground, feel him groan beneath her as he gave his life for her meal.
"Oh divines," she whispered. "Yes, fine. Whatever you want, just cure me of this."
He had a place in town, and he led her through Mortal out of sight of the guards. As she passed his neighbour's house she smelled something familiar and realized she might not be the only vampire there. And when he pushed her into his home she saw a little girl asleep in one bed.
"Your daughter?" she said, dubious.
"No. That's Agni, and you will not touch her." He led her to a trap door by his workbench and pulled it open. Athene smelled straw and bones, but he gave her no chance to balk. Down the ladder she went, and his face peered at her from the trap door frame.
"Comfortable?" he said.
There was just the straw to sleep on, and something had died years ago in a corner. Beyond that, not even a window.
"No," Athene said.
The trap door slammed shut.