From the moment my eyes fixed upon her, my awareness of my own misery faded. Her misery, instead, filled my mind. Her golden hair, long and curling, moved with every blast of wet wind that rose from the pounding falls. I willed her mind to open to mine. It wasn't difficult to read her - her emotions were bubbling over. There was pain and grief - overwhelming grief.

Why, I wondered? What could cause such pain in one so young?

Suddenly, I knew I had no time to plunder the depths of her mind in search of answers, for she inched nearer the edge, her unclothed toes curling over the side, her chin lifting even as she opened her arms to her sides like the beautiful Cathartes Aura drying its feathered wings in the morning sun.

I shouted, using the full power of my voice - an awesome thing in a vampire as old as I. "Nu! Stai!"

She flinched, her eyes fixing on mine across the yawning chasm. She showed no fear at the unnatural force of my command, though she had to know that voice could belong to no ordinary man. Facing me she stared, and then her eyes widened - with recognition.

I held up a hand, telling her without another word to remain where she was. She knew me - I was royalty. She must obey.

And yet, she did not. Rather, she leaned forward and fell, more than jumped, into the void. Left with no choice, I dove - and with little more than the force of my will and the wisdom of instinct - arrowed my body downward, angling toward her.

She fell slowly, her body flat, arms and legs splayed. I shot, arms and feet pointed, my body cutting through the air like a blade, even as the power of my mind tried to slow her descent and speed my own.

I had not mastered flight, though some of my kind had. I could change my form, but it took time to accomplish such a feat, and time was something I did not have. So my choice - if it could be termed a choice at all - was to break her fall with my own body.

Everything seemed to happen at half speed. I sliced through the upsurge of mists that seemed to bolster her. And then I was there, my body colliding with hers. I tried to make the impact less than crushing as I wrapped my arms around her slender frame and I turned to put my back to the earth.

For one instant her eyes, as gleaming black as pure onyx, held mine with a force I'd never felt. "Why?"

she whispered.

The pain in that single word was beyond understanding, and for the life of me I could not think of an answer. I didn't know why.

Pain exploded in me then, as the river's jagged rock teeth stopped our descent all at once. Icy water enveloped me, filled my nose, mouth and lungs. Bones cracked beneath my skin and all went dark.

I knew even as I embraced it that this was not the darkness of death. This respite was temporary - as it had been so many other times before. It was the same darkness that was my prison, my life.