He assigned me the task of....

I found a letter inside my house and it was sealed with a six-pointed star. It was from Orion. I opened the seal and there was nothing inside, the envelope was empty. There was no reason for him to be so discreet, I supposed, unless it had to be something really important.

I put the envelope into fireside, it transmuted into a long parchment. There was a lot written in it. Orion mentioned of meeting his envoys, that he had to go out of town for some important business and that he'd be back in a couple of days. He also mentioned something about not letting my guard down while he was away and to be back before midnight because he won't be there to accompany me on my way home. There was also a mention of the heir of the Kingdom of Glaze and he asked me to look into it if I could find some information through Miss Ivy or any of her books in the ancient texts section. 'Zephyr, the son of King Astraeus, is set to be crowned, I heard he is an exceptional warrior and wiser than many twice his age. He is the chosen heir of the Kingdom and for the ceremony, many sojourners are expected to arrive. It is supposed to take place a fortnight from today, I decided to sneak in if I could before the ceremony. Only if I had enough information about the kingdom and its ways. So get me all you could accumulate while I'm away. I'll let you on the details in person later. Counting on you!'

I read the letter again and could not believe that this was the second instance that had come true of that dream. Zephyr, I read the name. Yes, this was it. This is the name I read on that parchment, there were letters following it in my dream though but I don't remember because those were unfamiliar symbols that I am sure I had never seen before.

I wondered if those are more useful than I initially thought them to be, these little parts of the dream coming true. But right now I had enough to look into so I started noting down everything I came across today in my daybook.

The next two days, after finishing my afternoon shift, I went straight to the Book Store and asked Ivy about any book that could let me know more about our kingdoms. The fact that Ivy knows about my origins has made it a little easier to extract information from her, so she knows that I'm the daughter of Lillith but that is all. She thinks that I'm a rebel who left her home to travel different worlds before she could be crowned the heir of the Kingdom of Crepuscule. The two kingdoms of ours are allies so I don't really have to worry but one can never be too careful so I had hidden my actual purpose of being in this town from her. Mr. Yates had already helped me enough by circulating in town that I'm a distant niece of him so nobody else cared to dwell more into my background.

Ivy dropped two large books on my table and told me this is all she got right now but that she could manage to bring me some more if I give her a few days. I thanked her and started looking into those. There was not much to look at as there was scarcely anything written that I did not already know. The second book, however, seemed totally irrelevant to what I asked Ivy. It was a book that contained stored information of many precious stones that have been found in this world and the ones that are supposed to be present according to their mythologies and folktales.

"Ivy," I asked, "I don't think I'm going to find anything about the kingdoms in this book, don't you think it is totally unrelated to my topic of research?"

"Ahh! I wonder if it really is that irrelevant." Ivy walked to the white accent table by the window and picked up a Chrysanthemum stone from the bowl of stones and held it close to her left eye as if concentrating all her focus into the white crystal at the heart of it. "These precious stones had always been used in our worlds to aid us be it battles or rituals, they enhance our powers and practically decide the destiny of the Kingdom based on how they are used.'

"Did you know that these beautiful black stones are limited to a certain area in the world of these people who don't even use it anyway other than as an aesthetic? But to the people of Effloresce, these hold very deep significance. They amplify the effectiveness of any spell of the person who carries it in any form, but if that were the case every person in the Kingdom would have been invincible and it would turn out to be total chaos, don't you think?"

I agreed, I was aware that Precious stones' powers compliment the strength of will of any individual that is counted by the number of sacrifices they had made after acquiring the stone. Had the royalty not been hereditary, the kingdoms would turn into whirlwind for all the people trying to acquire the authority. The royal household, on the other hand, are made to strengthen their will by too many secret ways that are unknown to the common residents of the Kingdom. I too had made a good deal of those in my part....

"But what does that have to do with me reading these books now, Ivy. Could you please not speak so abstract."

Ivy looked at me and smiled.