A/N: This is my first story in originally titled, Spirits Within. The original story was abandoned after only 6 short chapters but had a good plot so I'm reviving it through Blood of the Healers. Enjoy and tell me what you think. :)
Prologue - Tears of Blood
Luthaliel stroked her daughter's midnight blue locks as she gasped for another breath to sustain her. It pained her to know that at seven hundred winters past since her daughter's birth, she was to leave her. She was not yet an adult, merely a child so near being orphaned. So soon. Too soon. I haven't taught her everything... Luthaliel thought gazing lovingly at her daughter who was trying to hold back her tears, glazing over her olive green eyes turning them into pools of wet moss.
"Mother, why can't they heal you? Gandalf must surely know how to stop this poison from taking...taking you away," Iradiel Auvreatylar whispered, her words halting, trying to hold on to strands of hope that even she knew would break any moment.
"It is too late child, I cannot breathe anymore. This is our curse, to die because of others' pains and wounds, you know this Iradiel," Luthaliel said, clasping her daughter's hand on her own. "It was my fault, I brought the poison from his body to my own," she added, trying to make her daughter know that it wasn't the man's fault for her death but her own.
"You didn't have to heal him, he is merely a human! To die is his destiny, not ours! It is because of his own folly that he failed to know which plant can make him ill!" Iradiel cried bitterly, remembering how that same man was outside their house with Gandalf being consoled as well that it was not his fault that the healer who brought him back from the throes of pain was herself dying. "Father was right, we aren't supposed to help them! It is because of them that we suffer!"
"Iradiel, do not speak of our gift as if it were a disease," Luthaliel reprimanded softly. "We belong to the highest order of healers in Middle Earth and it is our duty to save lives. I am sorry I wouldn't...be able to stay with you longer," Luthaliel gasped for dear life, closing her eyes.
"Mother!--"
Luthaliel half-opened her eyes and whispered, "The afterlife is calling on to me to leave, little one...Oh Valar, you need to learn so much more but for someone so young, you already despise who you are."
Tears finally spilled from Iradiel's eyes, pleading for her mother to fight the potent poison that was ravaging her body since early that morning. "It is because of people like him," she furiously pointed outside to where the man was, "that I cannot love what you and atar have given me! I cannot accept something that has taken both my parents from me, 'tis not a gift but a curse that would kill me when a wrong poison enters my body!" she reasoned painfully.
"Do not worry about making mistakes Iradiel, you are stronger than your father or I. You know this," she reminded her weeping daughter. Luthaliel stroked her daughter's pale cheek, "Remember that it is who you are, and in every work you will do, you will make your father and I proud. Do not weep anymore Iradiel for I will always be with you. Know that we will always love you."
And with those words, Luthaliel Auvreatylar exhaled her last breath. Iradiel choked back a strangled cry as she weeped silently for the remaining person in Middle Earth whom she truly loved and loved her back in return. From that moment on, she knew she cannot live the life her parents had, healing people who were injured, sick and dying. For all of the potential in her healing abilities, she knew that life was not for her.
Iradiel heard the door to their little cottage open with a creak. Gandalf. "Atar's dead," she whispered softly, looking up to the man her father called his dearest friend.
"I know, little one. Luthaliel flew with the wind above me outside," the old man's rough and emotional voice cut through both of their pain. First, it was Daeuhar Auvreatlyar's death a decade back then Luthaliel's own life. He placed a hand on her shoulder to comfort her but she remained silent. "I'm sorry Iradiel, she was the finest healer there was."
"We could have saved her, we could have," she said angrily, more to herself than to Gandalf.
"If we could have, we would have done it. But you know there was already no hope, it was a more potent poison than what Deauhar had." Gandalf reached for a wooden chair near the fireplace and sat next to Iradiel. He looked at Luthaliel and brushed a lock of her flaxen hair from her face and continued tiredly, "You can go to Rivendell with us dear one, Lord Elrond knew your mother."
Iradiel wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, "Nay. I will stay here. This is the only world I know and where my memories of them are."
"Very well then," Gandalf said, knowing that there was no arguing with the grief-stricken elven maid next to him. He reached for his small pack and fished out a silver band. "Your mother and father gave this to me to give to you when something happened to them. Here, take it," he said softly, handing her the ring.
To heal is to love. The inscription inside made her heart ache. It seemed to her that her parents loved their gift that they had forgotten to remember to love her more than their work. They died and left her alone because of it. Iradiel glanced at her beloved mother's face and clenched her eyes shut before standing up. "I--I have to..." and she walked out of the door almost bumping to the man who was the cause of her mother's death.
Iradiel disappeared into the bushes, leaving the man disturbed. He walked inside the cottage and found Gandalf quietly sitting near the dead healer's body, in deep thought. The side of the bed, damp from the girl's tears. But when he came closer to the bed, he gasped and stepped back.
The dampness turned into a crimson shade, much like blood. "Gandalf-" he started, alarmed.
Gandalf looked at the bed and then to the man with heaviness in his eyes, "Those are Iradiel's tears. Down by the river, she is weeping, not shedding tears but blood."
"But that's impossible!"
The old man shook his head and stood up next to the window and sighed, "Do you still not understand the extent of these healers' powers to you Aragorn, son of Arathorn?" He paused and rubbed his eyes with his gnarled hands. "Not only does Iradiel's mother the youngest sister of the Lady of the Woods, her father was an istar. And both branches are the direct descendants of the House of the Blood of the Healers."