Ilias, Spoon, and Inara surrounded Armad in a library. The place was grand in both size and collection. Its roof seemed to be attached to the sky. Scholars and students alike wearing big robes and turbans walked around the place. No one cared about Armad or his apparent bodyguards. Everything ran twenty-four hours a day and the only thing required was silence, which everyone observed.

For some unknown reason, all of them were sweating as they'd just done a marathon. Spoon panted and his big belly jumped up and down.

Armad sighed and wiped the sweat from his face. "There's nothing here as well."

They all groaned but still kept searching through the bookshelves. Some bookshelves had new books and some had old ones. Some were too old and gave the place a unique ancient feeling. Armad and his men climbed upstairs to the other rooms.

The stairs were too many and too long, so they ran. None of them bothered to talk to the other.

Half an hour later, they reached the end of the stairs where they found a closed door. Armad knocked once and a few seconds later, a small window in the door was opened. "This is a restricted section," said an old man through the window.

Armad showed a small card to the man. The old man looked at the card and then looked at Armad as if he was amazed at how Armad got it. He put his glasses on and read it out loud for everyone to hear.

"Clearance level: 13. Name Armad Djinn. Allegiance: none. Status: guest of her highness princess Nostalgia."

He took the next few minutes checking the card out until Armad and his friends got tired of waiting.

"You may come in." He opened the door a little to allow one person to enter.

Armad quickly went inside. Inara followed him behind but the old man closed the door on his face. "Only the cardholder enters."

Spoon reached with both hands to push the door open but Ilias grabbed him in time. "Not worth it," he murmured.

Unlike the halls before, this one was dark. Armad clenched his fist and let lightning out to light up the place. He could see big shelves that were at least two times the ones he saw below, each carrying books as far as he could see. It must be here. He must find it.

The origin of djinns

The djinns and the dordor

Seven worlds

Sword Bending of Sisiya

Seven worlds boundaries

Original leagues

The origin of pol

Triple Factor and Amraikugyu

The first and last satans

White djinns and Miki Abbas of the Daikirin

Nara and Wilberforce tribes

He stopped at that last shelf. That was exactly what he was looking for. Although, he might have to search through two hundred books to get what he wanted.

Still feeling motivated, he pulled out the first book and found a place to sit. Once he sat and opened the first page, the place shone brightly. The lamps he didn't know were there before came to life. Armad squinted for a while before he adjusted his sight. He could now see scholars walking around and even hear them compiling documents. It was as if he'd been taken out of the room to another.

Armad cleared his throat and one of the scholars looked at him curiously for a second before he looked away. They ignored him.

He shrugged and focused on the book in his hands. After an hour or so, he put it down and took another. He couldn't afford to waste any more time so he just read the contents page and then flipped through the beginning of the chapters. After doing the same thing for some time, he found something.

The text format used was large and was handwritten with some yellow ink. It said:

***

In the distant west, the Nara was the first to discover pol while the Wilberforce was the first to discover Bending by enslaving djinns. King Aldaima the first married his cousin sister from Nara. A woman named Ju Nara.

King Aldaima and Ju gave birth to four children. But the children were cursed. Born with black eyes. Ju killed them with her own hands. And since then, the couples haven't given birth again. Not a single child of King Aldaima survived. King Eyrion wasn't a child of King Aldaima despite ascending the throne after him. Many scholars say King Eyrion is the younger brother of King Aldaima, but no one knows the truth about this except the two Kings. This secret is known only to Ururu and a few others of the west.

On his death bed, King Aldaima instructed King Eyrion not to marry a Nara woman. But their destiny was already decided. He, too, married a woman from Nara who was said to be the most beautiful and powerful woman on earth. Madariyya Nara, they called her.

Unsurprisingly, King Eyrion also produced black-eyed children. Madariyya killed them even though King Eyrion did not like it.

After the seventh son was killed, King Eyrion ceased to produce more children. Coincidentally, no more men were born again to the Nara. The King and his queen considered it a punishment from God for killing their children. The women from Nara had to get married to other men of the lesser tribes. It didn't end well. King Eyrion and queen Madariyya forbade it.

Over time, the Nara died and their numbers dwindled. After four thousand years of reign, Eyrion left only a few of them. But then, the few ones remaining stopped growing old at all. A reverse curse, they called it. We still have no idea how it happened at the time of writing this.

After Eyrion's death, Ururu pressured the remaining Nara women to marry them. Surprisingly, none of the marriages produced a black-eyed child as it had done with the Wilberforce. As a result, Ururu stopped marrying them and just killed them. The few left fled the first world long before Amri and hid in the darker recesses of the lower worlds until Ururu got tired of searching.

Much later on, the lower worlds began hunting them again, forcing them to marry them and killing them after they had children. According to the perpetrators, if you married a member of that tribe, you wouldn't die. Which was a lie since Eyrion married one and he died anyway, Aldaima likewise.

Only a few of them survived, and to this day, no one knows where they are.

***

Armad closed the book. Nostalgia Nára had every reason to do what she did. Lacking the energy to argue or challenge the book, he came out of the library and found his friends. He told them about it and sought their advice on what to do next.

***

ONE DAY BEFORE THIS DAY...

A red-haired maid that looked like a Rafiyan knocked on the door shortly after the commander took his leave. "Lord Armad," she said. "Princess Nostalgia will be here soon."

Armad ran to the door to see the maid. "The princess is coming here?"

"Yes, my lord." She nodded.

Armad found himself smiling for joy. He immediately took another bath, changed his clothes, and sprayed himself with perfume. He never thought he would be so happy to see a girl.

Inara just smiled and looked away, pretending not to see any of it.

A few seconds later, Armad heard another knock on the door and got up to open the door. But instead of Nostalgia, he saw Hasanu. Armad raised an eyebrow wondering why he was having so many visitors at this hour.

Hasanu brought two men with him. One burly and the other slender carrying a sword.

"Spoon? Ilias?" Armad didn't expect to see them there. "I intend to ask Nostalgia for permission to bring you here."

Spoon glared at him. "Look, man, we get it. You've forgotten about us. Just admit it. How many days has it been already? And about the princess..."

Armad cleared his throat to remind Spoon that the man behind him was the princess' elder brother.

Hasanu smiled in response. "Commander Djinn asked me to bring them in," he said. "They were caught trying to sneak into the palace."

"Sneak?" Ilias said. "We were just asking about our brother."

Hasanu smiled and left while Spoon and Ilias rushed into the room. Armad recounted everything that had happened since his arrival. Then he told them about Nostalgia coming to the room shortly.

Spoon's eyes went wide in surprise, saying, "I have never seen her in my entire life."

Ilias burst out laughing. "So all the paintings you have for her were purely fictional? You have never seen her."

Armad recalled their first encounter with Spoon drawing Nostalgia and singing to her. Spoon always wanted to take the best meal and marry the most beautiful woman in the world, and Nostalgia just happened to be that woman. According to him, Nostalgia wanted to marry a burly man like him not a 'slimmy' like Armad.

The three burst out laughing as Spoon pulled out one of Nostalgia's drawings from his bag and gave it to Armad as a gift. It seemed to be recently drawn.

Having cleared the tense atmosphere, they went on to discuss ways to find Nusi. Armad was telling them about Ikenga and what he told him about Nusi being in the equatora when they heard another knocking.

Then a calm voice followed. "It's me."

Armad recognized the voice immediately. He informed them it was her before heading for the door. The drawing was conveniently placed inside his sleeve. He opened the door with a wide smile. But for the first time, he saw the woman looking gloomy.

When Spoon and Ilias saw this and realized it wasn't going to be another happy reunion, they wanted to leave the room and they would have if she wasn't blocking the door.

"I have agreed to marry Prince Deniz Bizaya," she said. Her voice trembled and she could hardly finish the sentence. She quickly turned around and left, her eyes full of tears.

Armad had been expecting that to happen for some time now. But why did it hurt? The drawing in his hand felt heavier than before, and everyone in the room just stared at him with their mouths wide open.

They remained like as she princess shadow disappeared. Then commander Djinn entered the room. He handed Armad a library clearance card.

"If you want to know why the princess made this decision then go to the city library and research on it. Your Bend earlier has changed her mind. Let her be, you too aren't meant to be together."

The commander turned and left. Armad and his friends decided to head to the city library and see what the commander meant. The princess didn't want to marry prince Bizaya, that much was obvious, but she agreed to do it nonetheless. Armad had the urge to know why. His heart ached at the thought.