Summaries for the Cristalle series

[ghislaine]

 "I ask thee, good minstrel, 

how is the scenery along the Eastern Sea?

On the sand beach full ten li

sea roses are in bloom;

In the far away bay,

the white gulls circle happy and gay."

-- Anonymous Korean poem, about a place, 명사 심니 해당 화 (the Sea Roses on the Long Beach)

 

Once on a deserted beach a young village doctor found a woman lying in the water. She seemed to have fallen from the stars. She could not remember from where she had come, but she soon found her place on Earth with her healing abilities. She became a regular nurse to the young inhabitants of a mansion by the sea surrounded with pink salt-blown roses. The young master of the house fell in love with the nurse, who had been given the name Edith, by the servant of the doctor who had found her. Edith could not return his love and, enraged and protective, the young man's family spread rumors about Edith's uncanny origins. In an escalated confrontation between themselves and the superstitious villagers, Edith, and the doctor she had grown to love, died. 

 

The young master was grief-stricken. Though his feelings about Edith had grown cold in the face of her rejection, he mourned her. The child she had had with the doctor, the young man took into his home and raised. Annelise grew to have the same uncanny beauty as her mother. It was rumored that she had angel blood. But the young man and his sister also had dangerous secrets to keep. Their illness was not an ordinary one. They were vampires, kept quietly alive with what blood they could obtain, always hidden from the light. Only Annelise could run and play in the salt-scented rose gardens that surrounded the mansion. The young master in time won Annelise's heart when she grew to maturity. 

 

But Annelise had discovered the dreadful secret that had made the master and his sister Jocelyn vampires. Annelise and her husband disappeared quietly into the city of Cristalle with their infant, Cambriel. To Annelise's relief, Cambriel showed no signs of the dreadful disease, or of her own uncanny healing abilities. Cambriel grew up in urban obscurity. The city grew increasingly unhealthy, and humans began to die. Annelise and her husband did not survive. Soon, Cambriel was the only human left who had not gone underground. She learned to grow herbs to help the humans and, in the meantime, did not age, or did so very slowly. She had already survived to a hundred, but still had an appearance of youth. 

 

Cambriel gave herbs and tinctures to the humans underground, while she alone could tolerate the spoiled atmosphere. Meanwhile, the humans worked underground to create beings who could withstand the atmosphere. An android, named Jude, was sent to the surface to protect Cambriel, while the city became increasingly populated with wolves. 

 

A fatal bite sent Cambriel into a deep sleep, while Jude cloned her to make additional beings to withstand the environment. The improved conditions of the atmosphere meant that humans could surface for longer, but three additional beings were created with Cambriel's level of resilience. At the same time, due to Cambriel's unusual genes, the sequences expressed varied wildly: the three beings created were Scarlet, an analytical human woman; Marjorie, a woman who, when bitten by a vampire, turned into a succubus; and Dresdan, who could see spirits.

 

Cristalle novels:

 

• The Empty City: Cambriel
• Red Rose: Scarlet
• The Fairies: Marjorie
• Rose Briar: Dresdan