Chapter One
August 7, 2014
"Okay, now try releasing a ball of fire from your hand." Brother Abdiel coaxed.
Egan held out his hands and aimed them at his instructor and concentrated as hard as he could. He squeezed his eyes shut and focused all of his energy on the task at hand. Streaks of his hair started glowing yellow. Brother Abdiel looked hopeful until all of the sudden, Egan dropped his hands to his sides and looked up, unimpressed as the yellow streaks disappeared.
"I can't do it."
"Yes you can!" Brother Abdiel encouraged.
"Obviously I can't."
"You're not focusing hard enough."
"What do you want me to do?"
"What did you do when you used your powers before?" Brother Abdiel asked.
"I just touched the wick of a candle and it lit. Or I'd touch something else flammable and it would just ignite."
"Okay. Focus on that when you try it this time."
"We've been at this for hours. Can't I take a break?"
"Do you want to go back to the volcano?"
Egan remembered back to three days ago when he was lowered into one of the Hawaiian volcanoes to test his tolerance to heat. He wasn't very far in, but he had been told that they were going to repeat the process in the span of the ascension month to make sure he was intolerant to fire and heat, bringing him closer and closer to the magma each time. He decided he wanted to put off that exercise for as long as he could.
"I didn't think so." Brother Abdiel confirmed. "Try again."
Egan held his hands out in front of him, the heels of his palms together, fingers from one hand sticking up and fingers from the other hand sticking down. He shut his eyes and concentrated. "Fire,” he thought, "I am fire."
Very slowly, the air in between his hands began to heat up. It started glowing. Brother Abdiel's eyes widened as a ball of flame started forming in his student's hands. He encouraged Egan and gave him a play-by-play of what he was doing (Egan's eyes were still shut). As the ball grew in Egan's hands, the glowing yellow streaks returned to his copper hair and when he opened his eyes, they were bright orange.
Then, without meaning to, he let go of the fireball and launched it directly toward his elder, who held up his hand and blocked it without a flinch.
"Good!" Brother Abdiel congratulated. "That's very good, Egan!"
Egan looked at the scorched ground where the fireball had landed and smiled.
"I did that?" He asked.
"Soon, you'll be doing much more than that, my brother."
Egan smiled again. "I did that."
August 17, 2014
"I can do this." Egan thought as he was lowered closer to the molten magma inside Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano. "It's not hot. It isn't hot. It's cold. Damn, I could really use River right now, this is freaking hot!"
He stared at the bubbling rock below him as sweat covered his entire body, his heart pounding in his chest so hard, it was hurting his ribs. He tried to convince himself that it wasn't hot and that he would be okay. He knew the elders wouldn't let him die.
As he got closer to the lava, he closed his eyes. His mind went to Antarctica. He was in the snow, in the cold. He could feel the cold air on his face and through his hair. He kept his eyes closed. He felt like he was actually in Antarctica. It was so cold. He could feel the icy wind on his cheeks, making him shiver. He saw a group of penguins waddle by. He smiled when one of them tripped on a stone. He saw huge plains of pure ice and snow. Everything was white. He decided he liked how it looked. It was so simple and clean. "So this is River's paradise," he thought, "Lucky bastard."
When he opened his eyes, he was a mere inches from the molten rock. He still felt cold. He stared at the magma below him. He reached down and touched it. It felt warm, but that's it. It didn't burn him. As soon as it touched him, it started to cool on his fingertips. He tried to shake it off, but it was stuck.
"I did it!" He called up to Brother Abdiel.
"Very good!" Brother Abdiel called back from the top.
Egan looked at him, smiling.
"We're going to bring you back up now, okay?"
Egan nodded and he felt himself start to raise up. When he got back up to the opening of the volcano, he showed Brother Abdiel the now cooled rock on his fingertips.
"You touched it?" Brother Abdiel was shocked.
"It won't come off."
"It's rock!"
Egan chuckled.
"You think this is funny? How are you going to get that off!"
Egan tried to keep a straight face. "Sorry, Brother."
"Go back to your quarters. We'll deal with this later."
"Yes, Brother."
