The world of Nadi - a single continent suffering from the injuries of past wars, facing the imminent danger of a new one. The North and South are at opposing ends of this struggle. To the North, the Kingdom where the High Priest resides, has become a superpower of religious zealots and strong Knights, harnessing the full strength of Alchemy. To the South, the Republic of the Modern Alliance prepares to either fight against or live alongside this new power in the world.

Between the two political sides, there are people at work who seek to change things for the better...

Years ago, Tobias and Kip, two citizens of Shieldhome, the capital city of the Kingdom, helped spark the shifting tides to come.

Tobias met Kip when they were both very young. Without parents, he lived in the home they left behind, supported by the Knights and an appointed Guardian to care for him when he needed it, as well as the notorious Speaker named Cade. His friends were Stephon, a lanky ruffian and Warren, a heavy-set kind hearted boy without a voice of his own. Kip was the girl Tobias had his eyes on for a long while. And as the four children of Shieldhome grew up, they became closer and closer. Tobias and Kip the most…

At this time, far to the South, within the Republic, a young girl named Indigo Scout lives in the city of Rosebury. She is one of an unknown number of people in the world who carry with them the mystical power called a Gift - dubbed as a Curse by many. She is immune to death, ricocheting her demise upon those within the range of her Aura - an otherworldly energy field that surrounds all Gifted.

As a young girl she loved a boy named J’son. But he loved another, a girl named Kila. The three of them were friends however, until religious zealots from the Kingdom to the North invaded the border with the intention of hunting down the Cursed. Indigo did not know she was one of those they hunted until she was attacked, run through with a blade. And upon her death, she was regenerated, her death being inflicted upon Kila instead as the friend cared for her.

J’son saw this happen and in a rage attacked her. A spark of anger that frightened them both. Indigo with small breaths told him she was sorry and he released her in shock of what he had done. Indigo ran away, always on her own since then. And J’son had lived in regret, hoping to find his long lost friend again someday…

Years later, Tobias and Kip are living together, entrusted by Shieldhome’s government to do so before marriage as he was now an appointed Knight and Kip was an honored, skilled blacksmith for the armed guards. Within the Kingdom, marriage is sacred and sex or pregnancy beforehand is viewed as one of the worst moral crimes. Unfortunately, a deep secret Kip and Tobias hold is that Kip is pregnant. So, the two prepare their escape with an old friend on the inside, Cade, a Speaker with secretive connections, working his best to fight against the oppressive government from the inside the best he can. He gifts Tobias a vial filled with forbidden Alchemy that could kill the baby growing inside of Kip. He holds onto it, choosing to keep the knowledge from her, conflicted on how to proceed with the knowledge.

Tobias’ friends, Stephon and Warren are training to become Knights as well. They all live the best lives they can -- Tobias and Kip struggling with the secret they hold, hoping to escape safely, their hearts pained by the knowledge that they would have to leave their friends and everything they’ve ever known behind someday without a word -- Stephon and Warren citizens of the Kingdom, their religion and law being the only thing they’ve ever known.

One night while Tobias and Kip are arguing over the question of using the vial gifted to them by Cade. Tobias had given it away to someone who needed it without consulting Kip first to see if she wanted to give up the pregnancy or not. As they argued, a spy from within the Kingdom’s ranks, Kiya, overheard their words, confirming that Kip is pregnant, committing one of the worst sins of the Kingdom’s religion. They are both targeted for arrest.

Tobias and Kip learn this the next day and escape with their lives, Stephon and Warren both incredibly confused on how to feel about the information. Tobias and Kip steal a horse and ride out of the city gates, hoping to escape, but there is an army on their tail.

Tobias hears a voice in his mind, a woman telling him to keep going the direction he’s in.

Accepting his death, Tobias tells Kip he loves her and they fall over the edge of a cliff into the water far below...

Kiya and the others after them assume they are dead until Tobias’ armor is found a week later. She thinks they might be alive and sends a party after them -- imprisoned Cursed agents that work for the High Priest. She sends them after the two fugitives with mechanical Hawks that can track down Tobias’ scent. They are Kill, Pain, Glutton and Burden, four individuals being punished for their demonic powers, hoping to be forgiven someday for crimes they did not commit. They set off, the young boy Burden the more hopeful of the group… and seemingly the most powerful...

Elsewhere, a light grows in an open field and a woman appears out of nowhere. She calls herself Thea, and she meets with two stoic, emotionless people, a man and a woman, named Lxkwtz and Klxwtz respectively. Thea has seemingly come to stop these people after Tobias and Kip for unknown reasons, besides the purpose of protecting the birth of their child. She names all people of Nadi who are called Gifted or Cursed, Aurans instead.

The Cursed agents of the Kingdom - Kill, Pain, Glutton and Burden - arrive and Thea uses a strange power to hold them at bay, something that Burden identifies as not being the power of an Aura, as he cannot sense her like he can others like him. She does not indulge any information to the boy, but handles them with empathy and care, despite the amount of harm she’s doing to their bodies. She keeps them there for multiple days, pushing them to near-death, so that she can give Tobias and Kip some time... but cannot help them for long. And she refuses to kill these enemies of theirs outright. After a week, she releases them and vanishes in the same way she appeared - in a flash of bright light...

Months have passed and Tobias and Kip are living under different names in the faraway town of Calcheth. Distance and time has given them safety from those who pursue them for quite a while. They assume that if the Kingdom has sent anyone, they have given up but now.

They’ve stayed there for a long while, but have to travel again soon. They are on the final steps of fulfilling the original plan Cade had laid out for them -- obtaining documentation to live in the Republic. They would travel to the Scarred Lands to meet with Tat again, one of the Cade’s connections, who was finishing up exactly what they needed.

Before leaving, Kip discovers the daughter of the people they’re staying with, Cisha, is Gifted. Cisha claims she can feel a power emanating off Kip, something that Gifted individuals can sense between one another, but Kip denies that she holds any such power. The two of them judge that the energy Cisha feels could be coming from her baby.

Tobias and Kip depart for the Scarred Lands and while they rest in a forest spring, Kip is encumbered with immense pain. A strange shimmering energy bursts out from her body and while they are confused as to what this is, it’s clear that the child is coming. They travel long and hard to the nearest town, hoping to find help.

They arrive at a village called Gnosh and meet a woman named Pyria who takes them in. The traveling Alchemist, J’son, has just left and it’s up to Tobias to run North and retrieve him. He does so, leaving Kip in their care and rushes off as the skies become a dark thunderstorm.

He finds J’son on the path and tells him his partner needs help. The Alchemist is young, about the age Tobias was when he met Kip, and it makes him worry about his expertise. However, J’son is eager to help and all Tobias can do is hope the boy is as skilled as any Alchemist.

As he rests and prepares to head back, over the hill arrive the Aurans sent to kill him and arrest Kip -- Kill, Pain, Glutton and Burden, equipped with Hawks and their own supernatural abilities. Tobias faces off against them as they demand to know where Kip and the child is. He discovers their immense strength and prepares to die without saying goodbye to his family. He charges, hoping he can at least injure one of them, hoping that they will fail to find Kip...

Kip is giving birth and J’son reaches her for assistance. During the process another surge of energy emerges from her body, traveling far across the land as she gives birth to her baby...

The surge of energy reaches Tobias and his enemies. It grants him strength… and it saps the powers of those who stand before him. He manages to strike down all except the boy, Burden, who uses his powers to telekinetically hit Tobias and send him flying through the air, hitting hard on the ground, knocking him unconscious...

Back in Gnosh, Kip has given birth to their baby daughter. She names her Svana. She hopes that Tobias will return soon and that they can be a family just like they always dreamed...

Tobias is being taken away by Burden, back to Shieldhome. The boy is a firm believer in the religion of the Kingdom and believes Tobias can be forgiven for his sins. Tobias gives himself to the fate that has befallen him, weak and helpless, unable to fight back, hoping that Kip and their daughter can be safe.

Many years later…

Indigo Scout is now in her twenties who seeks to change the world by killing the High Priest, putting an end to the mysterious man’s influence. For all the pain he and his Kingdom has caused the Gifted, the people of the world, and her own life. Along her journey she meets the Extreme Liberation Team, a group of freedom fighters who seek to kill the High Priest as well. Among them, Zo, a strong woman at the lead. She and Indigo become intimately close and Indigo discovers friendship and family among their ranks. Instead of En-Maer, the name the world has given her, the ancient language of the Goddesses meaning “Roaming Death”, they call her “Usamea”, a word of the same language meaning Liberated One.

Elsewhere, a woman named Rina Sarsys has been sent by the country of Matrun to the West to retrieve a young Gifted girl named Svana. She is in the clutches of Task, a notorious agent of the Kingdom and he strikes the young girl down after she gives him information on where En-Maer might be headed. Rina, with her Gift of impeccable hearing, is confused as to how she didn’t hear the man prepare to kill the child. She leaps down to battle him and tries to save her… though fears it may be too late.

She strikes Task with her blade, up through his eye and she battles hard until Task gets the upper hand, pushing through her supernatural powers once again, stabbing her through with his sword. The girl has survived, she can hear that much… but now, they will both die…

Task leaves them to care for his eye, letting them die in the cold interrogation room. He finds that many of his Knights have perished in the nearby hallways and there are two mysterious beings standing over the corpses approaching him. They walk by as if they didn’t even see him.

The man and woman, Lxkwtz and Klxwtz, enter the room, apparently after the corpse of Svana. But both are surprised that she is gone, along with Rina.

Rina ran all night, having felt a strange power grant her strength. It wasn’t until finding a hiding spot deep in the woods, miles away, that she found that the girl’s Gift was twofold -- other Gifts vanished in her presence and others were healed and strengthened.

The next day they kept moving, climbing high into the trees to evade Task’s search party which left them soon enough. Rina becomes a source of comfort and strength for the girl though Svana doesn’t quite trust her yet. Rina takes Svana to Gnosh, so she can say goodbye to her family. But what they find is a graveyard. Svana rushes down to find her mother and her puppy, only to find both of them dead. With a wail and a surge of energy, Svana’s powers bring the dead back to life… as mindless, wandering corpses before she collapses, unconscious. Instead of leaving these poor people to suffer, Rina cuts them all down, but not before promising Svana’s presumed undead mother that she would take good care of her child.

The next day, Task ruminates over his lost eye, awaiting the arrival of a Speaker, someone he knew from his past. Someone who Task can’t bring himself to name. But eventually he does, when the Speaker, Cade, asks him his name.

Task replies that it’s Task.

Cade tells him that it is, in fact, Tobias. He has only forgotten.

Task explodes with rage, pushing the Speaker away, finishing their meeting and his recollection of events with the Cursed woman who took the child away from their possession.

Cade leaves him, promising him that he hasn’t given up on him.

At this time, Indigo and the Liberators travel across the land, evading Kingdom Fortresses along the way, looking to sneak into the capital city of Shieldhome through the sewer system. However, they are attacked along the way by a notorious agent of the Kingdom - Task. Indigo runs on ahead with a small team to fulfill the mission but instead chooses to turn back and help the others in their battle.

In the end, most of the numbers of the Extreme Liberation Team have perished, leaving only Zo and Nyle against an entire army of Knights…

During all of this, traveling to the west, are Rina and Svana, recovering from the harrowing event with Task and the strangeness that occurred in Gnosh. Rina is taking her to Matrun where the child will be safe and among others of her kind - but Svana is still silent and afraid.

During the night, Svana runs away into the woods, terrified of everything and nothing, until tripping and falling down a long hill. Injured and afraid that there will be monsters in the night she’s comforted by a strange voice that comes to her, a voice that calls herself Thea. Thea tells her that Rina needs her. And that Svana will save her. Svana sleeps and wakes to Rina again who was incredibly worried that she had gone. Rina agrees to help her practice with her Gift. Before they depart for the day, Svana asks Rina about prayer and tells her that a woman from the sky spoke to her. Rina is confused, as all the Gods of the world’s prevailing religion are men.

Rina and Svana travel many miles together, leaving the Scarred Lands and entering the Storming Grasslands, a series of plains filled with thunderstorms which house the otherworldly beings who live in lightning called Sparks. Rina tells Svana of her previous family. She once had a husband and a daughter. But something happened… something she doesn’t wish to speak of. She feels a connection to Svana, as if she has a second chance to take care of a young girl like she failed to do with her own daughter long ago… At the very least they have found one another. Svana has found new family. And so has Rina.

Finally, atop the highest peak of Nadi, the mysterious man and woman, Lxkwtz and Klxwtz, speak to one another about Svana. About Rina. About Aura and Gifts and something called the Aurora… There is something they know about what Svana is in this world to discover and they are here to observe it. They are emotionless and purely logical beings… but Klxwtz, the woman, appears to be struggling with this demeanor, showing signs of emotion just aching to emerge fully.

And the journey continues!

Uncover more of the story and the mystery as Book One begins to come to a close! Continuing with Chapter 27 which is out now!

And for those who have come this far and haven’t quite noticed yet, this story has been told out of order here and there :) If you’re interested in experiencing the chapters in true chronology, just for fun, here is the order:

23, 3, 8, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 24, 25, 26, 1, 2, 4, 10, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 21, 22

For those who are fans and would like to experience the story so far in a different way, I thought it might be fun to check out! But reading from chapter 1 onward is of course as the story was intended to be read haha.

Thank you for reading :) Those who have discovered this story and support it mean the world to me and I’m ready to continue on this journey.