The Chronicles of Phoenix Bloodheart I: Turning Red

Chapter I: Chance

Part I: Lighting a spark

"Scars are just a treasure map for pain you've buried too deep to remember."
Jodi Picoult

"For a star to be born, there is one thing that must happen: a gaseous nebula must collapse. So collapse. Crumble. This is not your destruction. This is your birth."
Zoe Skylar

Chapter I: Chance

12 years earlier

Phoenix Dreamfoil is where she shouldn't be yet again, having snuck out of bed in the middle of the night for the umpteenth occasion this year.

The five-year-old is sitting on the second-floor balcony of Silvermoon City Inn located in Quel'Thalas. This region is home to the high elves - who are also known as the Quel'Dorei - and lies north of the Eastern Kingdoms.

Young Phoenix is watching the inngoers below laughing, drinking and gambling their night away.

Her blue eyes beam with childish wonder as she kneels and looks between the railings down on the only world she knows. The smells of roasted boar, beer, sweat and bloodthistle smoke rise from the inn floor and fill her nostrils.

The tiny elf's face is like a podgy ball of dough, with a petite nose, a lumpy chin and pale, pinkish skin that contrasts with her fiery, messy ginger hair. Freckles dance across her cheekbones.

As she turns her head left and right, not knowing what to look at first, her hair follows. It comes to a sudden stop as she stares at someone below, and a lock of hair falls to rest humorously between her eyes, making her look like a tiny ghoul with a long hairy nose. She's too engrossed in the hubbub below to brush it behind one of her pointy ears.

Her attention is drawn to an elf with silver hair dressed in all-black leather, sitting at the dice table. He has just raised his glass to celebrate a win, his other hand scooping gold from the table top as other men and elves watch on, some with jealousy.

Phoenix frowns. She recognises this elf. And she knows she doesn't like him.

At another nearby table, a group of short yet stoutly dwarves are laughing loudly and hysterically. One occasionally slams his flagon down on the wood, sending beer splashing onto those around him. In one corner of the room, on a slightly raised stage, an elegant-looking female elf with a long decorative gown is playing a harp gracefully and effortlessly.

In the other, darker corner near the entrance, a couple of female elf courtesans are in conversation with one another, while flaunting their looks and catching the attention of a human man by the bar, who stares back at them. They are wearing revealing ornate dresses, with long satin gloves and tights. Their figure is human-like, yet ever so shorter and skinnier than the man across the room.

Phoenix smiles when she sees one of the female elves, her mother Amelia Dreamfoil, then frowns when she notices the man from the bar walking towards them. She doesn't like her mum pretending to befriend other people for gold.

Her eyes wander again, this time spotting a goblin behind the bar, flipping bottles and pouring drinks with many years of experience. Phoenix finds it funny how a creature shorter than a dwarf can even exist, not to mention one with such a big, ugly nose.