The Healer's Song

Prologue

   Elaith Miara gasped for breath as she sprinted, towards home, towards safety.

She could hear it behind her.

The breathing- the sharp, hungry breaths being taken in, taking her scent. Marking her as prey.

She needed to run faster.

Elaith's feet barely touched the ground as she flew along Regalia's streets, hoping with all her might that the vampire- the beast- behind her would grow tired.

But still it came.

Elaith spotted the faint glow of her home's many lamps and candles through the sheets of drizzling rain. She gasped, running towards it with every shred of will she could muster.

It was not enough.

Pain. A gasp as fangs sank deep into her neck, scratching and piercing the flesh. She wriggled, desperately, trying to escape the vampire's grasp- a mistake. She yelled in pain as he scraped those awful fangs over the flesh, tearing it beyond complete repair. She'd have those scars forever.

Elaith didn't know much about what happened next- only that she was left on her family's doorstep, breathing labored and her body shaky, feeling as if she hadn't eaten in a week. Her family gaped at the wounds, treating them as best they could, nursing Elaith back to health in a matter of hours. But the Curse had taken effect.

The next three days were a blur to Elaith. A painful, embarrassing, dishonorable blur. She could remember sniffing, wanting to taste, blood. The bleeding teeth as her fangs came in. The horrible, horrible cracking pains in her bones.

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Elaith couldn't tell what was real and what was not.

She could smell them. Oh Estel, she could smell them.

The scent of copper flooded into her nostrils as she inhaled deeply. She was revolted yet infatuated. She wanted to flee and yet she kept on. Power coursed through every vein in her body, pulsing in her bones. She could feel the thick liquid clinging to her new fangs, the slight thrill and disgust of rushing toward the next thing that moved.

She sucked on the new victim with less zeal than before; she was growing full. Slowly, surely, her senses came back to her, and she hesitantly slid her fangs from the thing's fleshy surface. She looked down, shaking her head to clear it. When she opened her eyes again, she gasped and fought back a panic attack.

Corpses lay around her, their necks and wrists sporting gaping twin holes that dripped impossibly small amounts of blood, and slashes, and cuts. She'd done this.

A cough permeated her musing and she glanced down. She was holding an Ailor man by the throat. Twin pricks like on the others decorated his neck. She set him down slowly, loosening her grip on his windpipe, and he choked to life, his eyes snapping open. She hadn't drained him, it seemed.

"Oh, Spirit save me," he said, his voice rough and gravelly from strain. Elaith looked down at her hands; they were covered in glistening ruby blood.

"I...I did this." she said to herself, her eyes open and mouth hanging open in shock. "I did this."

The Ailor man scuttled away from her as best he could, fear in his eyes. "Monster! MONSTER!"

Elaith stared at him for a moment. He looked wild, with his hair all in a mess and clothes stained with both the grime of Regalia's filthy sewers and his own blood.

"I...I'm so sorry...I didn't...I lost control..."

"Lies! LIES! MONSTER!"

The man scuffled away, finally finding his way up to his feet, and limping off at the highest speed his apparent vertigo allowed. Elaith looked down at her hands again, turning them over in the dim light.

Elaith cried, her fangs gleaming in the light.