For the next few weeks, Flora found it incredibly hard to stay awake for more than a couple hours at a time. There was more than a few times that she fell asleep in the middle of reading. The physician told her that she was healing slower than he predicted, that there might be some other element wearing away at her energy. Even so, Flora was slowly healing and was ready to get going again.
She had asked Rose to get any books that she could find about the Premoni bloodline and its magical abilities. When Flora was feeling better, and Rose approved, she was going to scour the library for anything on prediction abilities. It was Flora's nature to research and read her way through problems, so she was used to this heavy research. Unfortunately, Rose only was only able to find newer resources; Flora would need to go to the library herself to find the more ancient tomes.
Flora was still coming to grips with everything that Rose had divulged to her. How the hell could anyone be able to see the future? Flora had never heard of anyone actually possessing this ability before. Even stranger, Flora couldn't remember a single time that she had "seen" anything. Rose told her that she usually passed out after having a vision, but the time it took her to wake up had gotten shorter over the years. Flora had believed her whole life that she was just a narcoleptic, and there was no reason for her sleeping spells. Even if people had tried to protect her from the truth, they could have at least let her in on something.
Now, Flora was determined to catch herself in the act. She hadn't yet figured out how to cause a vision, but she thought she might be able to wait until one happened to see how it felt. In the few weeks since she woke up, there was nothing, according to Rose. There really wasn't anyone who could teach her how to control her ability. Flora would need to be completely self taught, hence the books.
Flora decided that to start learning about her particular ability, she would need to learn about magic itself. The current book that she was studying was an in depth explanation of how humans were able to use magic. To Flora's surprise, it was a lot harder to categorize than she thought.
According to the book, The Form of Magic, there were three main categories that a person could fall into. The three categories were grouped by how the person connected with and used magic. The first division was the spiritual group, in which people could connect with spirits and the beyond. The second was the innate ability category. These were people that had the ability to use a skill by pulling magic from a inner energy well. They were able to produce magic energy inside of them to fill this well. Most of these skills were very specific and almost always hereditary. The last group was the channeled category, people who took the energy around them and manipulated it into something else. These people also had an energy well, but they were unable to produce magical energy inside of them, and therefore needed to pull the energy from somewhere else.
Flora got the gist of the book, but actually grouping someone's abilities was difficult. Someone's particular skillset may land mostly in one category, but also pull from others. For example, someone with an innate ability may still use channeled magic to either enhance their skillset or do something totally different. However, the more interconnected the types were within the magic, the more complicated and difficult the spells were. Flora knew that Felix's magic was purely channeled. He was very talented, and had a large energy well to cast complex spells, but he needed to fill his internal well with energy from outside sources.
The limitations for each group basically boiled down to how strong a person was both physically and mentally. Like any form of learning, someone would need to train the aspects of their bodies and minds that were effected. You wouldn't do pushups to run faster, so with magic, you needed to narrow in on what was actually pushing your magic.
Flora had no idea how to even start this process. What part of her had these visions? Was it only her mind or maybe something else? Flora didn't even know what limitations she had. All of the books she read pointed to how spiritual magicians were able to "connect", whatever that meant. There seemed to be less information on the spiritual side of magic, because not many people possessed it.
She wanted to talk to Felix so badly, but she couldn't find any way to contact him with the war going on. There was also a part of Flora that was glad that Felix was busy. She still hadn't processed the whole situation with the king, but if she thought about it, Flora felt a huge rush of shame. Flora had been an ignorant fool. Everyone knew about her abilities but her, and it took the king going to extreme measures for her to realize the truth.
She obsessed for a time about the things she could have seen to help her country before Prana even got into this war. The past was over with, but Flora decided to take a more positive outlook. There was still the future that with practice, Flora would be able to predict. The possibility of actually being of use to Prana pushed her to go even further each day to learn and train.
At first, there wasn't really much training, as Flora was still recovering, but she dug through as many books as Rose could bring her. However, this was beginning be too little for Flora. She was going to go explore the library weather or not Rose or the doctor approved. After everything with the king and Felix, she decided that she no longer cared if she got in trouble. The most she would get is a scolding, and Flora had a mission more important than anyone's opinion.
The day that Flora decided to venture out, she put on a simple brown dress that felt the most comfortable after wearing almost nothing but night gowns for months. Braiding her hair into a simple style, she looked at her reflection. Flora had lost quite a bit of weight, and she looked sunken and thin. Even after spending so much time in bed, she still felt like there was healing left to do. She raised her hand to her face, delicately placing her finger tips on two fresh scars across her right cheek. This was the first time that Flora had actually looked at her face since being injured. It was painful to look at, as Flora remembered the feeling of her father's rings slicing open her face.
Flora quickly turned away; she wouldn't look at the mirror for a while. She made her way through her chambers and paused at the last door. While Flora did say that she didn't care about anyone else, actually putting herself out there was daunting. Maybe for now she would try to avoid people, she thought, slinking towards the old library. When she got there she prepared herself to deliver some excuse to the librarian to be let in, but he was no where to be seen, so she headed back towards the ancient tomes section.
Weaving through the book cases, she tried to find her way to the information on her genealogy. Flora had been to the library probably over a thousand times, but she usually had the librarian or her tutors to point her in the right direction. This part of the library was not lit, as no one usually went this far in the library. The only light came from isles down where there were magic lanterns lighting the path. Flora squinted in the dim light, scanning the titles available, mostly just royal ledgers from centuries ago.
As Flora rounded the last corner to the very back of the library, she felt a strange pull towards one of the shelfs. She approached the spot, and gently took the scrolls and documents off of the shelf, placing them on the ground. Flora looked at the back of the shelf, only seeing a dark haze. Slowly, she reached into the void, her hand connecting with a deteriorating tome.
Flora gently cradled the tome as she brought it over to one of the closer lanterns. The text was faded, but she could barely make out the words. Someone wrote this a very, very long time ago. Flora smoothed out the edges of the parchment, and began to read:
"The mother graced us with all. She took what was nothing, and made it into something. The mother is the matriarch of this great country, one who united the lands to foster peace and prosperity. Some knew her as a human, others as a goddess, for the mother had abilities that most would think impossible. She could see what was not and guide her people towards the future. The mother possessed spiritual power like none before her, and she used it for the good of the world. None could ever compare."
Flora had heard of the mother, but only as a goddess. Had the mother really been a human? According to this, she was the founder of an entire country. Was that Prana? It seemed strange that this ancient tome contradicted what many other resources wrote. She didn't quite know what to make of it. Was she somehow related to this "mother"? What kind of spiritual power did she possess?
Flora placed the tome back where she found it and reorganized the other documents. A chill ran down her spine as she moved towards a more trafficked section of the library. Heading towards the magical abilities department, she scoured the shelfs for information on spiritual abilities. Flora finally found a book, and brought it to one of the nearby tables.
She spent the next couple hours reading the short book. A lot of what the book talked about seemed contradictory, but there was one theme overall. One with spiritual abilities could connect with something "other". For some people, this would be spirits of those who had passed on. For others, it would be entities older than this world, though many believed this impossible. There was reference to a place called "the beyond". The beyond was described as many different things throughout the resource. The beyond was were life went after it ended in this world. The beyond was a different universe all together. The beyond was where humans received their magical gifts from.
Flora spent the rest of the day combing through this section, trying to find anything about spiritual magic. She felt like the beyond was where her magic stemmed from. It definitely was not from this world. Thankfully, she was able to find a direction in which to start training. Many different records described the spiritual magic as connecting with the outside world. Some suggested meditating to figure out where your connection was coming from. Others suggested finding a spirit to guide you. There were many different ways to go, so it was hard for Flora to pick one.
A grumble escaped from Flora's stomach, alerting her to the fact that she hadn't eaten all day. She placed the book she was reading down on the table, and headed out of the library towards her room. Flora wasn't looking forward to getting chewed out by Rose, but her hunger and exhaustion made it hard to care about anything else. She would deal with everything in the morning.