Chapter 1: Meeting

Damien sat at Sora’s side, holding her tiny hand tightly and watching her chest rise with her shallow breaths. The doctor had said that if Sora could make it through the morning, then everything would be okay.

She looked so peaceful lying there motionless, her face pristine like a doll. If Damien didn’t know better he might have thought she was just asleep, not sedated by Leilandry’s healing magic.

“How’s she doing?”

And there was the doctor herself. She walked into the room holding a tray with two steaming cups of tea. She set one on the table beside him, the scent stinging his nose.

“No change.” Damien barely gave the elf a second glance. “She’s still asleep.”

“No spasms, or exclamations?” The doctor prodded.

“No, nothing like that,” Damien said, shaking his head. He was relieved at how peaceful she had been.

The doctor sighed, and Damien saw her tense expression relax a little. “That’s promising,” she murmured, taking a sip of her tea. She gestured to the other cup. “Take it. It’s moonglove tea, from Shadowveil. We’ve a long night in store, you’ll need the help.”

Damien sighed and took a sip. Among the nobility of Saekoria, exports from the elven lands of Shadowveil were considered exotic commodities. But for Damien, the flavor of elven tea had never agreed with him. It was too bitter, and the heat stung his lips, altogether a miserable experience. It was the perfect drink for such a horrid night.

“Now that the emergency has passed, I think it’s time we had a little talk,” Leilandry said, narrowing her eyes and taking another sip. “I don’t even know who you are, or who that girl is. You said it wasn’t important, but I make it a point of only dealing with people I trust.” She gave him an appraising look. “And I can’t say I put a lot of trust in a man who won’t tell me his name.”

“You’re not going to accuse me of being a trafficker, are you?” Damien bitterly asked.

“I saw the look in your eyes,” Leilandry shook her head. “You care for that child. Running here in the dead of winter, through a storm that would scare away dragons, no, no child trafficker would do that. Your relationship is real. Which makes it a rarity, as far as human-demon relationships go. I wonder, how-”

“Damien,” Damien snapped, desperate to take control of the conversation before she pried any deeper. “Damien Darkflame. That’s my name.”

“…I see,” Leilandry said, nodding. “Well. Hello, Damien. We’re finally introduced. Now, would you mind telling me how a human like you winds up on my doorstep with a vampire child in his arms?”

Damien clenched his jaw and took another sip of tea to stave off the inevitable answer. He had a dozen ways he could push back, saying how it was none of her business, how it had nothing to do with helping treat Sora, any number of ways he could have responded to her questions but he knew that they would be pointless.

He could see she wasn’t going to give in. Perhaps she was genuinely concerned, or just nosy, or hell, she might just be bored and wanted something to pass the time. Whatever the reason, the glint in her eyes told him she wasn't going to give up until he told her everything. 

With a resigned sigh, he turned to give Sora a longing look. Maybe it was the tea, but he felt more at ease than he'd expected. “I found Sora 32 days ago, starving on the streets of Lannas Loam. She was so small… so fragile…”

“You remember to the day,” Leilandry murmured. “Interesting.”

Damien ignored her, lost in the memory. He would never forget the way she looked at him with such primal fear in her eyes, like a wild animal. So scared and alone.

“She was feeding, that’s how I found her… using her lightning to drain the life from some vermin in an alley…” Damien mused. “I remember how surprised I was, seeing a girl scarcely ten years old, using Dark Lightning to feed...”

“Dark Lightning?” Leilandry interrupted him, sitting up in her chair. Damien was surprised by the intensity of her eyes. “That girl can use Dark Lightning? She can’t be older than ten!”

A vampire's fangs were their natural tool for draining the life energy from their victims, but another method developed as they matured. Dark Lightning was a unique magic that would drain the life from anything it struck.

Damien didn’t see the issue. “…Yes, she can. That’s how I knew she was a Pureblood, because it develops earlier in them.”

“A Pureblood?” Leilandry asked. She flung herself across the table and seized Damien by the collar, the bitterness in her breath stinging his eyes. “You’re sure she’s a Pureblood, not a Reborn?”

“...Yeah. Does that matter?” Damien asked, pulling away from her.

“Of course it matters! Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place, you fucking idiot?!” She exclaimed, digging her palm into her skull in frustration. “Purebloods and Reborns have completely different physiology! And you’re seriously looking after a Pureblood child without knowing that?! Were you looking to win an award for most negligent father of the year?!”

Leilandry began to pace around the room, checking books on the shelves and shoving them back in, cursing him under her breath the whole time.

“Well excuse me for not being an expert in vampire physiology!" Damien shouted back at her, just about done with this fucking elf's shittalking. "If it’s so important, why the fuck didn’t you ask me about it in the first place?!”

“Why the fuck would I assume that a Pureblood vampire child would be in the eastern belt of all places?! A half-elf bastard? Sure! A furry-eared malkin? Why not! But a Pureblood vampire child probably isn’t going to be living at the local orphanage, they’re pretty! Fucking! Rare! …Finally!”

Leilandry pulled a book off of the shelf and began flipped it open, leaving Damien with a lot of anger and frustration mixing with his confusion and concern.

“Doctor-“

“No. Hush up you. Stop talking,” the doctor snapped. “…Wait. No. Keep talking. What you were saying before. How you met. Helps me focus.” Her eyes were tearing across the pages so fast Damien had trouble keeping up.

“…So, I mean… I saw her feeding.” Damien abandoned Leilandry for the warmth of nostalgia. “I was shocked. There she was, draining that rat down to the last drop, and then… she stopped. She let it go. I was curious, so… I called out to her. You should have seen her, staring up at me with those big, red eyes, I was afraid she was going to feed on me next. But… she didn’t.”

The cry when Sora saw that rat crumple and the relief in her sigh when it scrambled away were sounds that would stay with Damien until the day he died.

“You wouldn’t believe how pitiful she looked, a scrawny mut begging for scraps. And her encroachment…” Damien’s eyes fell to Sora’s bare chest. The black mark seared into the pallid flesh twisted across her veins like the web of a spider, growing imperceptibly larger with every beat of her heart. But it was nothing compared to back then, when it stretched all the way to her throat like countless fingers to choke the life out of her.

“It was dreadful.”

Damien was surprised how easy the words came out of him. He’d been holding that day close to his chest for weeks, having avoided what few friends he still had in order to devote that time to Sora, but now that he finally had someone to talk to it was like he couldn’t stop himself.

Perhaps this doctor isn’t just here for Sora… perhaps she’s here to take my confession, he noted with a grim smile.

“I knew the moment I laid eyes on her that I couldn’t just leave her there, starving in the street. So I reached out to her and took her home with me. That’s… that’s all, I suppose.”

“…That’s it.”

The doctor’s words of incredulity pulled Damien back to the ground, and he turned to her in surprise. He didn’t think she’d actually been listening this whole time.

“You expect me to believe that you ran into a feral Pureblood on the street of a bustling city, and what? You just took her home with you?” Leilandry asked, shaking her head. “Sorry, but I don’t buy it. What aren’t you telling me?”

Damien let out a sigh and hung his head. “I… let her feed on me,” he admitted. “So she would trust me. Just a little, just… just enough to treat her encroachment.”

“…I see…” Leilandry said, nodding thoughtfully. She returned her attention to the book. “And she’s been feeding on you ever since?”

“Just a few times. She doesn’t need much to keep her encroachment from spreading.”

A terrifying thought crossed his mind. “Wait, is that the issue? Am I not feeding her enough? Is that why she got sick?!”

His eyes shot to Sora’s chest again, like his fears would be proven by her encroachment spreading further. But nothing had changed.

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Leilandry sighed. “Encroachment is just a vampire’s mana poisoning its body, and there’s nothing to worry about so long as she’s feeding regularly.”

Leilandry slammed the book closed and walked back over to Damien and Sora. She looked past him and placed a hand on Sora’s chest, running her fingers across the black lines spreading out from her heart.

Damien glanced hopefully up at her. Had she found out what was wrong with Sora from that book? Had she found a cure?

“Doctor, Sora’s illness…”

The doctor turned to Damien, and the bright smile on her face filled him with hope.

“Don’t worry,” she assured him, her voice uncharacteristically gentle and soft. “I know what’s wrong with her.”