Arcane Flames;The Embers Within

Chapter 1:The Fire Within

Elara never remembered a time when she didn’t feel the heat. From her earliest memories, the warmth was always there—beneath her skin, deep in her chest, as if her very soul burned with a flame no one else could see.

She was born in Greyhollow, a small village tucked away at the edge of the great Ashen Forest, where magic was a whispered rumor rather than an accepted reality. To most, Greyhollow was nothing more than a forgotten place—a speck on the map where the only remarkable thing was the occasional visit from wandering traders. Her father,Galen, was the village blacksmith, known for his steady hand and quiet demeanor.Elara admired him deeply, though their relationship had always been more practical than emotional. Galen was a man of few words, and after her mother’s death, he became even more distant.

Elara’s mother had died when she was just five.Though Elara had few memories of her, she remembered her mother’s eyes—warm and watchful, always glowing with some untold secret. The villagers rarely spoke of her, and when they did, it was with caution.Elara had overheard snippets of conversation when she was young: “a strange woman,” “unnatural,” and “touched by the old magic.” When Elara asked her father about her, he would give a terse response and change the subject. The more Elara pressed, the more he withdrew. Over time, she learned to stop asking.

By the age of ten,Elara began to understand that something wasn’t right about her, that there was something simmering beneath her surface. The fire she felt inside had grown stronger, more insistent. At first, it had been nothing more than a sensation—a warmth in her chest whenever she was scared or angry. But the day she turned thirteen, it became real.

She remembered that day clearly. She had been at the riverbank, gathering water with the other children when a group of boys—older, stronger—decided to single her out. It wasn’t uncommon;Elara had always been different, quieter, not like the others. They taunted her, pushing her into the river’s cold, shallow waters.

Something inside her snapped.

As she climbed out, dripping wet, rage surged through her, hot and blistering. She didn’t even realize what had happened until one of the boys screamed. Her hands were glowing—small flickers of fire danced across her palms, and the air around her had grown hot. The boys backed away, terror on their faces.Elara’s heart raced as she clenched her fists, willing the fire to disappear. But the flames only flared brighter, hotter.

One of the boys ran to fetch an elder.Elara panicked, her breath coming in short gasps. She couldn’t let them see. She couldn’t let anyone know. She turned and fled, running through the trees with her hands still alight, the fire burning her skin without causing pain. It was as if the flames were part of her.

She hadn’t told anyone about the incident. Not even her father. That day, she made a vow: no one would ever see the fire again.

From that moment on,Elara dedicated herself to suppressing the flames. Every time she felt anger or fear, she would close her eyes and focus on the cold—picturing the frozen river in the dead of winter, the biting wind, the silence of the snow. And it worked, for a while. She became skilled at hiding her emotions, at keeping the fire buried deep within. She avoided the other villagers, keeping to herself and working alongside her father at the forge. No one knew. No one could know.

But as Elara grew older, the fire became harder to control. It was no longer just a flicker beneath her skin; it was a living thing, hungry and impatient. There were days when she could feel it pulsing in her veins, threatening to break free. She would lie awake at night, her hands trembling with the effort of holding it back.

The villagers began to notice her odd behavior. They whispered about her when they thought she couldn’t hear—"odd," "distant," "cursed like her mother." Even those who had once been friendly toward her began to keep their distance.Elara felt their eyes on her wherever she went, and the isolation she had created for herself became a prison.

Her father, though still kind, seemed preoccupied. He rarely asked her about her day, and when they sat together at meals, the silence between them was heavy. She sometimes wondered if he knew—if he sensed the fire within her, just as he had once sensed something strange about her mother. But if he did, he never spoke of it.

By the time she was sixteen,Elara had become a master of hiding. Her life had fallen into a quiet rhythm—working the forge, gathering supplies, and spending long, solitary hours by the riverbank where the fire had first appeared. There were days when she almost convinced herself that the fire was gone, that she was just like everyone else.

But deep down,Elara knew better. The fire was always there, lurking beneath the surface, waiting for the moment she would slip, the moment she would lose control.

It was on the night of the Eclipse Festival that everything changed.

Greyhollow held the Eclipse Festival every ten years, celebrating the rare event when the moon would pass in front of the sun, casting the village into eerie twilight. For most of the villagers, it was a night of celebration and wonder—a time to feast, dance, and light bonfires that burned through the night. But for Elara, the festival was a nightmare. The heat from the fires, the excited shouts, the flickering lights—it all made the fire inside her stir, restless and wild. She could feel it just beneath the surface, eager to escape.

As the festival began,Elara stood at the edge of the square, watching the flames dance in the center of the village. Her father was there, laughing and talking with the other villagers, oblivious to her presence.Elara’s heart pounded as she took a step back, feeling the fire in her chest swell.

Just then, she noticed something—a figure standing at the far edge of the square, cloaked in shadow. He was tall, his face hidden beneath a hood, but his eyes… his eyes were locked on her, glowing with a strange intensity.

Elara’s blood ran cold. Something about the man was wrong. She could feel it, like a weight pressing down on her chest. And then, as if in response, the fire inside her flared, hot and insistent.

The man smiled.

Elara’s breath caught in her throat. She turned on her heel and hurried away from the square, her heart racing. She could feel the fire rising, her control slipping. She needed to get away, to find somewhere quiet where she could calm the flames before they burned out of control.

She ducked into a narrow alleyway, her back pressed against the cool stone wall as she tried to steady her breathing. But the fire wasn’t calming. It was growing.

“Elara.”

The voice was soft, almost a whisper, but it sent a shiver down her spine. She turned slowly, and there he was—the man from the square, standing at the mouth of the alley. His cloak billowed in the wind that wasn’t there, and his eyes… they glowed, like embers in the dark.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said, his voice low and smooth. “You have no idea what you are, do you?”

Elara’s hands trembled. The fire was roaring inside her now, too strong to contain. She backed away, her eyes wide with fear.

The man took a step closer, his smile growing. “The Dragon always rises.”

At the mention of the word Dragon,Elara’s mind reeled. She had heard the stories—the legends of the Dragon, the creature of flame, said to appear once every thousand years. But those were just stories. Weren’t they?

Before she could respond, the ground beneath her feet seemed to shift, and the air around her pulsed with energy. The fire inside her surged, hotter than it had ever been before. Her hands burst into flames, lighting up the alley with a brilliant, fiery glow.

The man’s smile widened. “It begins.”

Elara’s heart pounded as the flames grew, wrapping around her arms and crackling with power. She tried to stop it, to pull the fire back, but it was too late. The fire had broken free, and there was no controlling it now.

For the first time in her life,Elara realized that the fire inside her wasn’t just a part of her.

It was her destiny.

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