Riga Nénharma

Prologue: The Fall of Riga

Amilmalith helplessly watched as the sunlight grew dim and his father, King Iilot, stood watching the sun fall behind the horizon. King Iilot turned, with seriousness drawn on his face, and spoke, “It is time.”

            Suddenly everything went completely still. All movement around Amilmalith slowed down to an excruciating pace. Amilmalith could hear his younger brother’s pulse pounding through his frail frame, and escaping in torrents through his openly wounded heart. At that moment Amilmalith felt his pain; Amilmalith felt his sorrow. He was amazed by his younger brother’s strength… He looked down upon his younger brother’s hand and forced him to flex his muscles. Amilmalith was surprised at how the muscles flexed back and forth perfectly as if Tinethiel was never deathly ill.

            Soon his veins would flow with blood, changing him into a child of darkness. Amilmalith fell to his brother, not yet seventeen, a dull ache forcing its way in his chest, reminding him what was going to happen. He listened closely to Tinethiel’s heart and waited till the moment Tinethiel finally calmed down. Then Amilmalith bit him.

            Tinethiel’s eyes flew open…

            Tinethiel felt a sharp sensation that woke him as Amilmalith caged him in a bear hug as he started the transition. Amilmalith’s razor sharp teeth sliced through the wet skin of his brother without resistance, penetrating deep into the flesh of his neck as his teeth cut through the thin blood vessels and forced them to spill their precious liquid. As the scarlet fluid flicked unto Amilmalith’s tongue, he moaned as Tinethiel silently screamed as his brother latched onto the wound with his entire mouse and began to greedily suck on it, like a starving infant to his mother’s nipple.

            Amilmalith struggled in subduing his younger brother as he continued to fight him. Tinethiel’s voice had failed him weeks before and now he was utterly helpless. He couldn’t scream for help or even fight against his brother. Tinethiel had accepted his fate and knew that soon his life energy would dissipate to nothing. His disease which he had contracted when he was a young boy, called the Silent infection, was killing him by not allowing him to breathe. Most days, in the last couple of months, he had suddenly started coughing up blood. His infection, located in the lungs, was silently killing him. Tinethiel was ready to die, he had suffered long enough or he had thought him time would be ending.

            “No!” coughed Tinethiel. “Leave me alone! You’re not my brother!”

            After what seemed like forever Amilmalith released his grasp on his brother’s neck and slowly sat up staring into the moonlight radiating through the window. Tinethiel looked more like ghost than a human who was suffering and was told by doctors that he soon would die. Tinethiel didn’t move, didn’t utter a sound, or even take a breath. His life force had been taken from him and even though he was still considered alive because his heart was still beating, he knew he would die.

            Amilmalith gazed down at Tinethiel watching to see if he had any fight left in him. He could hear Tinethiel’s weak heart struggling to beat and knew he had to do the unthinkable. Like his mother before him, Amilmalith, would be turning his brother into a vampire. Not long ago his family was hit with a tragedy that changed his kingdom forever. Yet, when the order was replaced with peace and kindness his father and he had decided that their Royal bloodline would never disappear. It hadn’t even been a year since he had turned his younger brother, Analad, into a child of darkness, but the time had been right as if he had waited six months more his brother, Tinethiel, what have died.

            The gentleness that he showed to Tinethiel was all a game to calm his heart as he forced the transition. As Tinethiel’s heart nearly stopped, Amilmalith punctured his own wrist with his lethal teeth and poison and drank. The rush from drinking the crimson liquid made him moan in ecstasy and sucked in enough to keep in his mouth. He cradled Tinethiel’s lifeless body in his arms and slowly lowered his pale, luscious lips to Tinethiel. At first, as the liquid slowly drain down his parched throat, Tinethiel made no attempt to fight. Tinethiel’s eyes were glazed over until Amilmalith had distributed every single morsel of his tainted blood down Tinethiel’s throat.

            Like out of a horror movie, King Iilot appeared on the other side of the bed and moistened Tinethiel’s hair away from his eyes and kissed him on the forehead.

            “My son,” whispered King Iilot, surveying the masterpiece his eldest son had created. “Has finally been able to join his real family.”

            Tinethiel slept for seventeen days, not waking for a moment to eat or drink. His transition was done in a less than adequate way. His dying human form had made the transition harder to control. In the months that followed Tinethiel slowly adjusted to his new life. He didn’t understand what had happened to him and had temporary amnesia due to his human disease. Just like Analad before him he adjusted and learned to enjoy his new life that was given to him.

            The year was 512A.D.in the month of November; the kingdom of Estonia had been born. No neighbors or foreign countries dared to attack King Iilot’s country and much of the world, even though it was the start of the Middle Ages, lived in a temporary peace. As the humans died the Royal family lived on. The civilians of Estonia never questioned anything especially since it was the time of Christianity. It was believed that the royal family had been blessed by God, as servants of God, to watch and protect the dying world.

            For over 100 years the kingdom of Estonia was peaceful. King Iilot was a peaceful and gentle ruler yet he lacked one thing, a race of humans that could understand that vampires now controlled fate. The royal family wasn’t necessarily a large one; there was only three

Heirs: Amilmalith, Analad, and Tinethiel. Yet since the whole family was transformed into creatures that never died there reign was sure to never end. It wasn’t until the year 1057 that a country, a well-known neighbor, decided to revolt against Estonia. The country was the prosperous and beautiful Latvia. At Latvia’s Royal city, Riga, there held a powerful and ancient family descendants’ of the old King Solomon.

            At first Estonia did nothing against the revolt, the country didn’t even flinch, but then again Latvia never invaded Estonian borders or tried to take over the Royal capital. Amilmalith and King Iilot never even paying attention to Latvia until they found out that the royal family had three new installments. It took two years, but the Estonian spies were able to clarify what gender the new children were. Too much surprise the children were all girls, female by birth, and their birth was a miracle. There had never been a woman who has ever lived through having more than two children at one time. Queen Elvawen, the most beautiful woman in Eastern Europe, had given birth to a family of children who would marry one another.

            They were three princes and three princesses, these children, as declared by their father, were to marry. Once Amilmalith had learned that there were three princesses he had declared that they would be wives of Estonia, each given to one of his brothers and one to him. Though that accusation cause great turmoil for both countries he knew for Estonia and Latvia to continue to have peace they needed to have royal hostages. And on December 1059, Amilmalith, Analad, Tinethiel, and King Iilot’s armies invaded the capital city Riga in the attempt to kidnap the triplets. But on that day Estonia would those their King and suffer the wrath of Amilmalith as he swore to get his revenge against King Belolas’s family. The Queen of Latvia later committed suicide after she was captured by Analad’s men. Amilmalith did everything he could in an attempt to save the Queen and even the vengeful King, but they had taken poison in an attempt to make sure they were not resurrected.

            As Amilmalith searched the constellations of the old Queens and Kings he noticed that his father was never coming back. And for the next eleven years he searched the country of Latvia for the family. His intentions were not to kill them but to protect them because he found out that the child he had chosen had the same deadly illness his brother Tinethiel had been dying from. He swore on his father’s grave he would find her and save her, even if it meant forcing her.