Northern continued to rummage through the archives, creating piles of promising texts while leaving clones to study the more specialized works—treatises on minerals, monster materials, rift formations. He left them to their task while he focused on what mattered most: history. Every corner of it he could find.
After dropping one more book onto the growing stack, he used wind manipulation to control several others, letting them drift and orbit around him in lazy circles. His eyes swept across their spines—and then caught on sothing different.
This book had a worn leather binding, its surface cracked and weathered in a way that looked completely out of place among the pristine archive texts.
’Now what are you?’
Curiosity tugged at him, and naturally the book drifted toward his outstretched hand. He took it and examined it more closely.
The quality of the leather was rough. Too rough—almost primitive compared to the refined craftsmanship elsewhere in the library. There was sothing inscribed on the cover, though ti had worn most of it away. The surface looked almost scoured clean, as if years of handling had rubbed the inscription into near-invisibility.
Northern squinted, tilting the book toward better light. He could still make out faint outlines beneath the weathering.
His brows furrowed as he traced them with his gaze.
The symbols were the sa language from the wooden chains at the floating oasis—the place Anike had taken him to. The sa language Aoi used.
It read: *On the Nakhari and Their Coming*
’Ha... about ti.’
Northern settled onto the ladder’s top rung, letting his legs dangle over empty air as he opened the worn cover. The spine creaked softly, releasing the faint musty scent of age.
The pages inside were... strange. Not paper. Sothing thinner, more fibrous, with a texture that reminded him of pressed plant matter—perhaps reed or bark. The ink had faded to a brownish hue over what must have been centuries, but the words remained legible.
With a curl of a smile tugging at his lips, he began to read.
THE MOURGEN TEXTS — FRAGNT I
On the Nakhari and Their Coming
In the ti before ti was counted there was only man. Man who was weak. Man who died easy and quick like grass in fire season. This is known. This is what the elders say and what their elders said before.
But the stars watched.
El Fach watched most of all.
Northern paused.
’El Fach.’
Since Anike had explained El Fach’s constellation significance—along with the other eleven—it was important to note this presence now. The Luminance Star appearing in a text this old, speaking of bloodlines and gifts...
He kept reading.
El Fach who is called the Luminance Star by so and the Burning Eye by others and many nas besides that are not written here because I do not know them all. El Fach saw mankind and saw their weakness and saw sothing else too. What El Fach saw is not recorded. Perhaps want. Perhaps loneliness. Perhaps sothing that stars feel that n cannot na.
What is known is this. El Fach ca down. Or sent down a part. Or reached down. The texts do not agree and I write what I find.
From this union ca the bloodline of the Nakhari.
The Nakhari who are not n but are of n. The Nakhari who are not star but carry star within. Two kinds there were from the beginning and two kinds there remain.
The Reikis. They who received the body-gift.
The Beija. They who received the soul-gift.
I will write of each.
A small frown creased his brow. Two bloodlines, two different gifts—body and soul. Northern silenced his racing thoughts and continued to read.
ON THE REIKIS
The Reikis are the children of strength. This is said wrong. They are the children of El Fach sa as Beija. But their gift settled in the body and so they are called children of strength by common folk who do not know the proper terms.
A Reiki is stronger than ten n. So say twenty. The oldest texts say a hundred but I think this is exaggeration from writers who wished to impress their lords. Still. Stronger than n by far.
But this is not all.
The Reikis possess what is called body abilities. These are not Talents. This must be understood clear. A Talent is given by the primordials and asured and ranked. A body ability is sothing other. Sothing that cos from the blood. From El Fach’s gift passed down through generations.
One Reiki may have skin that turns hard as stone when struck. Another may heal wounds that would kill lesser n. Another may move with speed that the eye cannot follow. These gifts vary. They are not chosen. They are born with.
Northern stopped reading.
Sothing vital clicked into place.
’Ah... Formless...’
What if Formless wasn’t random? What if it was his gift—the one attributed to his body, passed down through blood rather than granted through awakening? But that didn’t quite make sense either. He’d had the All-Seeing Eyes from the beginning. Wasn’t that a bloodline gift of so sort?
But then... that was more attributed to the Asgardians.
Then maybe the Asgardians were Beija?
’No... can’t be. They wouldn’t let their bloodline spread that loosely.’
But then again—if one thought about it—the Empire had wanted to destroy the Asgardians. And that too for no justifiable reason anyone had ever explained to him.
Northern’s frown deepened. He set that thread of curiosity aside for now, focusing instead on the more imdiate question burning through his mind.
’If I recall correctly, my body shouldn’t have been able to hold both Chaos and Void—but it did. Even the Chaos Prince ntioned it. The evolutions my body has undergone, completely outside my Talent’s abilities... this could explain it. The Reikis bloodline runs in after all.’
His grip tightened on the ancient text, a surge of excitent coursing through him. Of course, this also ant that every one of his half-brothers and sisters—the entire Imperial family—probably possessed unique bloodline gifts that had nothing to do with their Talents.
Finally, all the scattered pieces from years of questions seed to be falling into place.
Northern was glad. Genuinely glad.
He fixed his eyes on the page and imdiately continued to read.
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