I was born in heat, and I thrived in heat. I grew up my entire life in the city of Aris. I had become accustomed to the oppressive weather and found it a comfortable blanket that brought back nostalgic feelings.
Even now, I find myself at times yearning to go back, but I look at the memories I've made in my travels, and I value them far more than the idea of a home that doesn't exist anymore.
When I was 15, my older brother left our small home to join the Shi'tari of his own will. My mother was furious when he told her about his plan. Yelling turned to screaming, then to kicking, andâjust like thatâhe was cast out of our home. I didn't have the heart at the time to tell my mother that my brother had gotten just what he wanted. I wish I had.
After that night, and until this day; I still don't know where my brother is or if he's still alive. I wonder if he knew just a couple of years later that his mother would pass away from the Grits.
My mother called me her little fiery rose. She said that I was beautiful like a flower but had the natural strength to protect myself. Looking back, I wonder if somehow she knew about my affinity for the flame.
It wasn't until after her passing that I left Aris. I followed the Founder's Trail with a caravan into Uldinher. The caravaneer was a woman named Irrabel Crowns. Her most striking quality was her commanding presence, having so many people follow her lead was something I'm not sure I could handle even now.
Irrabel had beautiful, long, dark hair and eyes that shone like sapphires. When I approached her about wanting to join and head east, she told me I would need to pay to be brought along. The price was high, but I was okay with paying it. I had no one left here, so I sold it all. I sold everything in the house and then the house itself, taking only a handful of keepsakes.
When I showed Irrabel the coin, she just smiled and said, "I see you're serious about this." "Keep your coin so you can find a place to stay when you get to where you're going." She brought me aboard her caravan with more coin than my family had ever had, and we went east.
Getting used to the colder weather was difficult; I would be constantly shivering no matter how many layers I wore. Sometimes I would wear all the clothes that I had packed just to stay warm. It had become something of an amusement around the caravan, and some of the other members would poke fun at me, saying I was a desert flower who would shiver all her petals off.
As amusing as that was to me at the time, which I can tell you it was not, Irrabel started to ask me odd questions during our time together, such as who my parents were, what my family name meant, and if I knew my grandparents.
For Irrabel's kindness, I answered as truthfully as I could. I didn't know my father. My mother would never speak of him, saying what was not here was not important as long as we had each other. For all I knew, my family name had no greater meaning, and I had known my grandfather for a few short years before he passed away. He was a mason who worked for magistrate Mareen Telman of Aris, but he was never paid much.
Irrabel, not seeming to be satisfied with my answer, asked if I had any magical affinity. Taken aback by the strange question, I answered her truthfully. I told her no, I was never able to do anything like that. She just stared at me with those dark blue eyes. After a moment or two, she nodded her head and seemed to have come to some kind of conclusion.
Later, when the sun set that day, she brought me over to her cart, and I sat down with her and enjoyed a warm dinner. After the meal, we locked eyes, and she asked me a question that would have been extremely odd if asked to anybody else. She asked me if I had ever had strange dreams about a large, oddly colored tree with motes of light that sang and danced around the leaves at night.
I don't know if she used magic to somehow make me more truthful or if I had been waiting my whole life to tell someone about my dreams, but without hesitation I answered yes. Something I had never told another living soul, I just gave away to a person I had only known for a week.
Irrabel looked at me, and said, with a genuine smile I hadn't seen before, "I knew it! You're like me. She said we were something called "Awoken" and that it must have been fate that brought us together. I sat there dumbfounded as she went on calling me a "sleeper" and saying that I have a wonderful gift inside of me that, if I chose, could be unleashed.
She told me I didn't have to decide tonight but that I should give her my answer before we part ways. I later went back to my designated spot in a cart shared with two other young women, and with that strange interaction in my mind, I went to bed. In my sleep, I saw the tree again, with its beautiful pearlescent trunk that seemed to change color depending on how the dancing lights above hit it, its rainbow-colored leaves that seemed to sing when rustled by the warm breeze, and the beautiful motes of lights, each with a distinct voice, floating and singing around the canopy.
I stood there the same way I do every time I have this dream, fixated on the beauty of the tree, in awe of it and what it could mean. But something was different this time. It took me far longer to recognize that fact. There was the figure of a person standing to my left. I slowly, and with great effort, pulled my gaze from the tree, to see it was a woman.
Her hair was so long it reached the ground behind her, and it was the same pearlescent color as the tree's trunk. Her skin was pale white, almost angelic, until I noticed her eyes, those dark blue eyes I'd grown accustomed to over the last week. She gave me that genuine smile again and looked toward the tree.
I didn't know what to think or feel. There were so many emotions flying through my head until I felt something snap me out of my whirlwind.
Kellie, a 14-year-old girl I was sharing the cart with, was gently shaking me awake, saying that it was dawn and caravan wakeup had been called. Blinking my hazy eyes, I went to rub them, finding tears. I layered up like usual and made my way out to find Irrabel.
As I approached, she was talking to one of the traders that were a part of the caravan. She looked at me and held her finger up in a gesture, saying "just one moment," and winked. After their conversation ended, I basically fumbled my way over to her in front of the cart.
I paused a moment, looked at her, and announced. "I want to be an Awoken" Even before I got those words out, she had that genuine smile again. Over the next couple of weeks, I would learn what it truly meant to be "Awoken" The first lesson was for me to not layer as much and to let what's "inside" warm me. I didn't know what that meant, but I knew it was going to be agony. I remember I was down to just a normal layer of clothes by the 13th day, I was so cold, it didn't make any sense.
The other people in the caravan wore less than I did and showed no sign of being cold. I thought I may have been sick or something was wrong with me. I brought it up to Irrabel, and she said that what was happening was normal and to let it run its course. That night, she told me that we were not sleeping, but staying out and "enjoying the nighttime weather."
I stood out there, colder and in more pain than I had ever been. Irrabel sat and watched me suffer. Every time I said, "I couldn't take it anymore," she said, "That I must,", and every time I threw vile words at her, she did not take it out on me.
I stood there in agony, trying to hurt her and make her feel my pain. But my words meant as little to her as those of a fussing child. The cold agony I felt was unending. I was told you are supposed to go numb after being cold for long enough, but that hostile comfort never came to me. I felt it all. For hours, I stood out there in such tremendous pain that I felt I was on the brink of passing out.
By the end of it, I was so angry, so tired, and in so much pain that I could have killed someone, but I was so mentally overwhelmed that I could hardly move. So I reached out and grabbed what I could. I grabbed anything inside of me that could be my comfort, so I held the anger inside of me.
The anger from the pain, the anger from not knowing who my father was, the anger of my brother leaving and my mother dying, the anger of leaving it all. This anger grew until I had a white inferno in my chest. My rage consumed me so wholly that all I could feel was the inferno. The pain was gone, and what was left was heat. I could only hear heat, feel heat, and see heat.
It had completely consumed me, and I was no longer cold. Lost in my rage, I heard something, something feint, something I had heard before. I listened for it again, and there it was, I focused on it, digging and moving through my rage to focus on this sound. And there it was again, Irrabel's voice, she said.
"OPEN YOUR EYES!"
And I did. Around me, the darkness of the night had been pushed away by light, and I could see Irrabel clearly. She looked just as she had in my dreams. I didn't know what was making this light shine so brightly over the camp, but I felt something, something I hadn't felt since I left home. I was no longer cold.
I was warm. I looked down at myself, at my hands, my feet, and my whole body. I was engulfed in flames from head to toe, and I didn't feel at all uncomfortable.
To be truthful, I felt great. I felt like everything was right in the world. I felt downright euphoric. I looked up at Irrabel and in her beautiful dreamlike form she smiled and said, "You have awoken." Little did I know those words would christen who I am today.
"The Flame of Aris."