He raised his staff and planted it firmly in the frozen earth. With a thought, he summoned his intent, and the world obeyed.
The snow in a twenty-meter radius melted away, the frozen ground hardening and smoothing into a perfect circle of dark, packed earth.
With a flick of his wrist, he began to inscribe the ritual circle, not with chalk or ash, but by simply willing the lines into existence.
The earth itself cracked and darkened, forming intricate, interlocking patterns of Greek and proto-Baltic symbols, a synthesis of his knowledge and their essence, created by him and Circe.
The air hummed with power. This was not a simple elemental ritual; this was a rite of transference, of soul-forging, learned from Circe's guarded knowledge.
Karta and Dekla watched, their forms beginning to glow with a soft, silver light. They were not resisting. They were preparing.
"Step into the center," Nicholas instructed, his voice echoing with the layered resonance of his authority.
The two goddesses, these ancient, faded beings, walked forward and stood back-to-back in the heart of the circle. Their light intensified, flowing outwards to trace the lines Nicholas had carved.
He closed his eyes and began the chant, his voice a low, powerful thrum that vibrated in the bones of the world. It was a complex invocation, calling upon the principles of binding, preservation, and transformation.
He called upon the unbreakable nature of Oaths, the malleability of Soul, and the permanence of Artifice.
«Ψυχαὶ ἀθάνατοι, οὐσίας τῆς εἰμαρμένης, δέσμιοι τοῦ χρόνου μόναι, ἀκούσατε!»
Immortal souls, essences of fate, sole prisoners of time, hear me!
The silver light from the sisters flared, becoming impossible to see with mortal eyes but only visible through his soul sense.
«Λύω ὑμᾶς ἀπὸ τῆς σαρκὸς τῆς φθινούσης, ἀποστρέφω τὴν λήθην τοῦ κόσμου!»
(I release you from your decaying flesh, I turn away the world's forgetfulness!)
Their physical forms began to dissolve, not into golden dust like a monster, but into pure, shimmering strands of silver and grey light. The strands twisted in the air, weaving together like thread on a cosmic loom, to his soul sense images of threads connecting all existence appeared.
«Συνδέω ὑμᾶς εἰς νέον σχῆμα, εἰς κύτος δυνάμεως, εἰς ἄγγος τῆς ἐμῆς ἐξουσίας!»
(I bind you into a new form, into a vessel of power, into an instrument of my authority!)
The woven light condensed, collapsing in on itself. The air screamed with the force of the transformation.
Nicholas did not flinch, his will an iron anchor in the metaphysical storm. He chanted the final words, pouring his own intent, his own burgeoning authority, into the mix.
«Γίνεσθε ἡ κλεὶς τῆς μοίρας μου, ἡ ἀσφάλεια τῆς γνώμης μου, ἡ ῥοπὴ ἐν τῇ χειρὶ μου! Δέχομαι ὑμᾶς!»
(Become the key to my fate, the assurance of my will, the balance in my hand! I accept you!)
With a final, silent thunderclap of power, the light vanished.
Floating in the center of the now-darkened circle was a single, perfect object.
It was a book.
Its cover was bound in a material of deep, shadowy grey, like the pelt of a wolf, and it was clasped with a lock of polished, bone-white horn.
Embossed upon the cover in shimmering, silver-leaf was not a title, but a symbol: a single, unblinking eye, from which radiated intricate lines that resembled both the branches of a tree and the threads of a web.
It was heavy, substantial, and seemed to draw the very light into its cover, promising secrets held fast within.
Nicholas reached out, his movement deliberate. His fingers brushed the cool, strangely living surface of the cover. The bone-white clasp clicked open of its own accord.
The moment he opened it was an explosion of silent understanding.
A wave of profound, non-visual knowledge crashed into his mind. It was not the screeching of two trapped goddesses, but the presence of a calm, vast intelligence, a unified consciousness born of their fusion and his will.
He felt them not as voices, but as a deep, still pool of wisdom regarding the mechanics of destiny. He could sense the scope of their power, now his to command.
It was the power to read and write the ledger of the world.
The pages were not paper, but a smooth, bone-like substance, the color of old parchment. They were blank, but as he focused his will upon them, script began to bloom.
It was not any language he knew, but a flowing, geometric script of silver ink that conveyed meaning directly to his soul. It was a living record of probabilities.
With a thought, he could make the book display the loose, fraying threads in an enemy's intricate plans.
He could see the strongest, most reinforced strands of his own designs written as equations of near certainty.
He could find the weak points in a fortress, not of stone, but of probability; the single, fragile variable that, if altered, could cause a cascade of failure. It was the ultimate strategic tool, a direct line into the source code of reality.
A tremor, subtle as a spider's step, travelled up his arm—not a warning from the book, but a vibration from the world's fabric.
A ripple in the grand narrative, emanating from this point.
Somewhere, in a place outside of time, three ancient weavers had paused, their hands hovering over their loom, feeling a dissonant knot where there had only been smooth thread before.
A new author was scribbling in the margins of their work.
He had done it. He had breached the library of the cosmos and stolen a blank volume. He held a sliver of Fate itself in his hand, not only to read, but to edit.
He closed the book with a soft, definitive thud. The silver eye on the cover seemed to hold a knowing glint.
He looked east, past the skeletal branches of the trees, towards the heart of a continent already smelling of blood and gunpowder.
The gathering storm of mortal ambition and divine manipulation called to him. A true, cold smile, the first that reached the storm-grey of his eyes since his rebirth, finally broke through his composed mask.
He tucked the book securely within his robes, its weight a comforting promise against his chest.
"Let the games begin."
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