Daughter Dearest

The cries of a woman echoed through the walls of the Temple of Uraos, as she was in labor. Few men stood outside the birth chamber of the temple and waited. One of them briskly walked to and fro with a worried expression. Seeing him stressed, one of the men called out,

"Elyx, do not worry. All will be fine. Remember today is the auspicious day of Uraos. Look, the red star has risen and shining brightly. It is a sign that this child will be special."

Elyx looked up to the night sky and saw the bright reddish star glowing in full vigor. He looked at it and whispered, "The auspicious star, Nezeira," and smiled. At that moment loud cries of a baby replaced the screams of her mother. Then a midwife came out and said with a big smile,

"It is a girl sire!"

Congratulations poured in for Elyx. He was elated but restless to meet his newborn daughter. After a while, the midwives came out and invited Elyx into the birthing chamber. His wife Fayah looked exhausted yet gleaming with happiness with their baby daughter in her arms. Elyx went and sat beside her. He lovingly placed his hands on the baby's head. His eyes showed tears of joy as the baby cooed with its eyes closed. Fayah then said to her husband,

"She has your eyes and nose."

Elyx, "Yes but she has your look, beautiful and elegant."

They both smiled looking at the baby and then Elyx asked his wife,

"Have you thought of a name?"

Fayah, "No Elyx. Have you?"

Elyx thought for a moment and said, "No. But today is the auspicious day of Uraos and the star Nezeira is shining brightly. So how about we name her after the star under which she was born?"

Fayah, "Nezeira! That is a beautiful name."

Elyx, "Yes, the star of our lives. May she keep shining like this forever."

The temple of Uraos went for a celebration for two days. After all, it was the birth of the child of the high priest and priestess of Uraos who was the chief of the sworn protectors of the Gem of Ayelet. A few months later when baby Nezeira was about ten months old an unexpected thing happened. The Gem of Ayelet went missing. It was the day for the annual worship of Uraos when one of the priestesses discovered Nezeira, who has already learned to walk baby steps near the altar of Uraos where the gem was kept. She held a white crystal stone in her hand which resembled the Gem of Ayelet, but the blue sapphire was nowhere to be seen. A commotion broke in the temple with the loss as within the gem was the beating heart of all creations. In the wrong hands, it will bring devastating destruction unfathomable to anyone.

As news spread of the loss of the gem Elyx and Fayah was accused of misplacing it. With the people turning on them, they had no way but to run. From then onwards the family has been hunted and pursued under the suspicion that they stole it for their greed. The family used to relocate from one place to another, not settling in one place for more than a few years. When Nezeira was about seven years old they were living somewhere in the present Cresian kingdom when her father was pursued and killed trying to save them. Since then she, her mother, and her grandmother went into hiding completely in the forest, with no contact with the outside world. And just when they thought that their days of worries are over the family was discovered again and this time the whole family was killed. Fayah and her mother made Nezeira flee to save her life. But she was later caught by the soldiers and mortally injured, left on the streets to die. No one came to her help and before she dies with the last feeble breaths she saw a figure approach her. He had a majestic figure and his eyes were glowing red in the darkness of the dawn. He bent down and picked her up and brought her to some place they were stationed. As her breaths ran out the man bent down and spoke in a caring voice,

"You will be reborn as my daughter, child. For now, sleep and rest."

Saying it he took her hand and inflicted a gentle yet heavy bite on the veins. Nezeira felt a searing pain but she was too weak to even scream. She felt pain transform into a flow of burning sensation that steadily crept into her whole body. Her heart ran fast and then stopped dead. Within a few hours, her heart sprang back to life. Nezeira felt an incredible vitality in her body as if something has changed, following which a deadly thirst grappled her. She slowly opened her eyes and as soon as she did so the ones standing around her let out shrieks and exclaims. She let out a low snarl as she went down from her bed and stepped towards the men standing. Suddenly her eyesight became so sharp that she can see the blood running through their pulsating veins. Then she realized that these weren't humans. They had red glowing eyes with fangs and were also snarling at her. But Nezeira unfazed by them charged and grabbed one and with much ferociousness sank her fangs into his neck and suck out the blood killing him. In- satiated, she went for another, to the horror of the vampires present there. Nezeira stopped after a few more were sucked dry of blood. Drenched in blood, and searing blue eyes she stood in the middle of the chamber where she was brought. King Zachaeus entered and saw the bloody scene and was shocked beyond his wits. He proceeded cautiously towards her and carefully looked into her eyes. Being an old vampire Zachaeus was well perceptive towards others' intent and at that moment he knew that Nezeira does not have any evil intent of killing anyone. The only thing that drove her to kill a few vampires was the tremendous thirst that every vampire experiences after their first transformation. But what made his mind go blank was the fact that being a vampire she drank vampire blood, something which is impossible. Not just that, but her eyes are electric blue instead of red. But Zachaeus and the entire vampire group were yet to get the biggest shock of their existence. After finding Nezeira smeared in blood Zachaeus approached her and said,

"Dear one, it's okay. Go clean up. We will talk after."

Nezeira didn't say anything and walked out of the room towards the well. The sun was about to rise and Zachaeus was a bit late to realize that. So he was about to warn Nezeira to quickly finish and come inside as the sunlight will burn if not kill her. But just then the first rays of sunlight hit Nezeira's face, stunning everyone who watched it from inside the house. Her face reflected a golden sheen with the sunlight on her face. She stood in the middle of the courtyard looking at the rising sun with a cold expression on her face.

That day after nightfall Zachaeus took Nezeira with him to Vladmore and shortly declared her as the princess. But Nezeira wasn't swayed by these developments. All she concentrated on was learning martial arts and sword fighting. She retained all her memories as a human and never once forgot how her mother and grandmother gave their lives to save her. How the humans hunted them for the gem which was not even in their possession. The bitterness grew in her day by day and she became ruthless and cold feared by all. But despite her terrifying persona, she has never been overtly cruel; cold but not cruel. Zachaeus treated her like his own daughter preferring her over his biological son, but somewhere deep down he could not replace Elyx's fatherly affection in her. Nezeira could never let go of the pursuit of the reason her family died and her ending up being an unusual vampire. She kept a few secret connections of her own as those by the law of the kingdoms are illegal and questionable. Kabir was one of her connections from Cresia and a half-werewolf. He has his own secret networks in Lunaveria through which he was able to smuggle out the page from the Book of the Gods. At first, he secretly kept helping Nezeira to uncover the mystery of her cruel fate but it ended up in a dead end.

Zachaeus on the other hand showered his fatherly love on Nezeira more than his own son Rhain which at times baffled her. But she was always filial to Zachaeus as he took her in during the most unstable times of her life. Hated by Zacchaeus's wife, the vampire queen she never gave in to their provocations. Nezeira locked up her emotions and certain memories within her the moment she died as a human, hence these interpersonal equations of jealousy, love, and hatred mattered nothing to her. She was only filial, that too in a strictly formal way, towards Zachaeus, and as centuries went by she even stopped looking for why she ended up like this until the present course of events started to happen. Yet the words spoken by Elyx never left her mind and heart. Some of the words made no sense to her to this day, like Elyx often used to call Nezeira 'my precious gem', and when she used to ask him why he called her so, he used to say,

"Because you are one of your kind, my dear. So, so special!!"

Her mother and grandmother put restrictions on her for some reasons but her Elyx always encouraged her to be 'normal'. After waking up as a vampire she faintly remembers the details of her human life, especially her childhood. She wiped any traces of her family except the round-shaped pendant locket from Elyx. He gave that to her on the day he was killed. While putting it on her he told,

"Zeru, this is something that will protect you and be a symbol of how much I love you. Never part with it dear one. And don't tell anyone about it. This is a secret between you and me, alright?"

Nezeira, "I promise you, Father, I will never ever take it off and will keep it a secret. I love you."

Elyx kissed her forehead lovingly, the only memory she didn't try, even after centuries. Nezeira also remembered the white diamond-like crystal she received on her eighteenth birthday, the stone which caused the destruction of her family. According to Nezeira, it is a good thing that it's destroyed. Years later Nezeira came across something which prompted her to look for the mystery behind the tragedy of her family. She tried to look for the crystal when Kabir informed her about something which had occurred at the same time during her birth. But the stone was nowhere to be found. However, the Pact was signed between the kingdoms which made Nezeira busy with other affairs of the kingdom, and thus the pursuit was shelved.

The crystal never popped up in Nezeira's mind until the day she finally met Kabir, after the day Rhain sneaked into her guesthouse suite and stole the scroll. What she came to know from Kabir, made her realize that the crystal her mother and grandmother gave her on her eighteenth birthday holds much more value than she ever thought. As the cases progressed she and Kabir came to the conclusion that the monster problem might be just the tip of the iceberg.