Nikola Vicinage paged through her journals, a faint smile playing on her lips. She loved revisiting the boundless audacity of her younger self. She'd always known she was a genius, but some of the ideas she’d scribbled down as a child still made her grin. While other children were engrossed in soft toys and make-believe, Nikola had already deduced that mathematical operations could be translated into electrical switching circuits. On and off. The fundamental building blocks of logic. All problems, she’d confidently declared, could eventually be solved by an electrical mind.
Years later, when her peers began to discover boys, Nikola, along with her friend Tessa Skylar, received an invitation to tour the city’s massive power-generating facility. Nikola was there for her brain, her insatiable curiosity. Tessa, for her family’s immense wealth, which had helped birth this colossal consumer of the infamous green radioactive chemical. Security outside had been formidable, but inside, a surprising laxity prevailed. No one had noticed when Tessa, with the practiced grace of a shadow, slipped a vial of the glowing substance into her pocket. Back home, she presented it to Nikola, who adopted the eerie, pulsating liquid as her personal battery, the boundless wellspring for all her burgeoning inventions.
The following year, the Great Calamity struck, irrevocably altering their world. Cape Lumous and its entire landmass were severed, quarantined from the rest of civilization. Many perished, and those who remained were forced to become warriors. Nikola, however, channeled her fierce intellect into crafting weapons. Together with Forgea, the eldest, fiery-haired Torqueburn sister, she forged the Light Bringer – a war hammer that, when wielded, imbued its bearer with crackling electrical power.
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Nikola’s fingers brushed the page in her journal where she had hastily sketched its intricate designs. The Light Bringer’s triumph spurred her to her next invention, and her greatest mistake: a machine designed to amplify both mind and body with pure electricity. Lyria, her own sister, had bravely volunteered to be the test subject. The device had granted Lyria immense power and profound wisdom, yes, but it had also filled her with a terrifying nihilism, causing her to vanish into the storm-laden clouds. That was five years ago, and ever since, Nikola had been obsessively, relentlessly working on nothing but a cure.
What had happened to Lyria was never supposed to occur. In a rare, devastating moment, Nikola had miscalculated the potency of the green vial. She knew now, with chilling certainty, that it was fiercely radioactive, a virulent poison. If not for the annual vaccine everyone received, its constant proximity would have long since claimed her life.
But now, hope shimmered on the horizon. A letter had arrived from Chiara Tanzanight, who was diligently researching and experimenting with a newly discovered substance, Ether, unearthed by her sisters in the deep mines. Chiara’s findings were astounding: Ether’s power signature was the precise opposite of the radioactive chemical’s. Nikola felt a theory ignite within her mind, a spark of pure brilliance. Could Ether replace the vaccines? Could it be a final cure for radiation sickness?
She considered writing to Tansy Mossbrook, to share her burgeoning ideas. But no. She didn’t have time to save everyone. She only wanted to save one person, the one whose disappearance weighed like a leaden block in her heart, the one for whom she felt a crushing, personal responsibility. She knew, with a certainty that transcended logic, that Lyria was still out there, somewhere. If only Nikola could obtain some of this Ether, then maybe, just maybe, she could reconfigure her device. And finally, bring her sister back home.
