Blood of A Seeker

Blood of A Seeker -8-

“Damn it!” I cursed and glared at the keys reflecting the orange glow and wriggled a hand through the crack but only managed to get as much as my fingers through. The bookshelf wouldn’t even budge, as if it were bolted into the carpeted floor.

I clenched my teeth and extended a solid beam of orange, watching it creep along the wood and land on the keys. My teeth stopped gnawing on my lower lip when another silhouette was illuminated by the colour.

“Another book,” I murmured and pushed the tendril further. With a firm grasp, I yanked my raised hand over my head and watched the keys and the book fly into my lap, clasped between the rings of orange. “The perks of being a Chroma.” I rolled my eyes. I was talking to myself – the clear start of insanity.

For a moment I triumphantly held the keys in my hand then felt my gaze being drawn to the solid object in my lap.

A very thin leather bound book too old to belong in the library lay comfortably. A wax seal had been melted onto the leather binding but it had been broken off, probably quite some time ago too by the looks of it.

Pursing my lips, I undid the leather and sat against the wall, wondering why this book had been hiding behind a bookshelf, more specifically in Fairwyn’s library. Was somebody trying to hide it? Or did it fall from the shelf and aged? Either way, it was a good thing I found it before it rotted away.

I shook my head. Somehow I just didn’t even believe my own theories. For a moment I wondered if I should even have possession of this book then figured, if it was in a library, it was meant to be found or borrowed at some point.

Still, the worn out crest engraved in the rough leather gave me the feeling this book would be different to any other library books in Fairwyn Library.

I quickly unbounded the string carefully and opened to the first page, instantly noticing the pages were yellowing in the corners. The feeling of the old book was somewhat exciting: I couldn’t deny the thrill as I skimmed over the title page only to find that it was just a bunch of fancy lines combined into different, intricate symbols.

This disheartened me. I stared blankly at the page then scowled, glaring at it. What was the use in creating a book no one could even read?

“How stupid,” I muttered, tempted to slam the cover shut when something moved – on the page.

I stopped and stared harder, scrutinizing the strokes of fine ink suddenly moving across the page in the symbol. I drew my gaze back in surprise but kept my eyes glued to the scene. Letters suddenly formed in my head, relating back to the symbol on the page. It was as though I was recognising a new language: I somehow understood.

 “Co . . . Codes,” I read aloud curiously, analysing the English word then focused back to the symbol. The word tasted foreign on the tip of my tongue and the symbol gave me something to ponder over.

How did that word just appear in my mind? How did I know it matched the symbol on the page? Was it just all in my head?

I strayed my gaze back to the page and felt my breath catch in my throat. The symbol seemed normal by itself, just printed on the page with no other characters surrounding it. However only in my head, could I clearly visualise the letters which the symbol seemed to stand for: C-O-D-E-S.

“What the heck?” I growled and turned the page, hoping that I had just imagined it. Another symbol lay upon the page and I could not recognise it at all. “What is this?” I asked myself with a frown and ignored the image of the letters forming in my head. “Opening Codes.”

My fingertips ran along the rough crispy edge as I flipped the page again. To my utter surprise, the next double pages had been split into four sections with scraggly handwriting jotted around one big symbol each sector.