Sienna moved her hands, reading the words in her textbook. Around her, teenagers in protective clothing did the same.
A flame came to life, hovering in the air above her palm. She moved slowly, smoothly, growing the flicker into a decent fireball size. With a sudden twist of her wrist, the fireball shot off her hand and hit the leather target five feet away.
It left a scorch mark on the green ring. Not center, but for her third fireball Sienna was proud. She closed her eyes, visualized the words on the page, and tried summoning a fireball without looking at the book.
Professor Gull walked slowly back and forth behind the students, occasionally yelling encouragement or a warning.
Sienna watched a new flame come to life, and she made this one grow faster. By the time they graduated, the students would be expected to create a flame, grow it to a fireball, and have it hit dead center on a target twenty feet away within five seconds. Sienna’s father could do it in three seconds, and she was determined to be just as good as him.
She sent the fireball off. It hit the line separating dead center from the green ring on the target. Professor Gull noticed and gave her a “well done”.
Almost beaming, Sienna summoned another flame.
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Do not hold the flame in your hand for more than ten seconds. Do not aim a fireball at anything living unless you are prepared to face the consequences of it dying. Do not summon fire if you feel a sneeze coming on. Do not stare into the fire. DO NOT PRACTICE AT HOME.
Sienna scanned the list of rules, and stuffed it into her backpack. She knew all those things. Her father was an Imperial Mage. He’d been teaching her the rules and how to do simple spells since she was born.
And she was a natural, just like he’d been. She knew what she was doing, more than anyone else in her class.
It wouldn’t hurt if she practiced summoning and dismissing a flame.
Sienna went down into her basement, where the walls and floor were made of cold stone. Practicing here would be perfectly safe.
She sat down on an old crate and took a deep breath, slowly letting it out.
Reciting the words of the spell, she moved her hands. A flame appeared. She made it grow, and then with a sharp movement made it vanish.
Sienna repeated this process ten times, moving faster and faster each time. She didn’t have a clock, but she was convinced it only took her three seconds to grow the fire to fireball size now.
Smiling, she decided to increase the size of the fireball.
She summoned a flame, and made it grow. She watched it carefully, growing it up to twice the size of her last fireball.
Her eyes strayed to the center of the fire, and her fingers stopped moving.
It was… beautiful. The fire twisted and danced, breathing in time with her. It had a soul, or perhaps shared hers.
She leaned closer, feeling the comforting warmth on her nose and cheeks. It was used as a weapon, but it could be so much more. Fire, and the magic that created it, was art. It was captivating and intrinsically beautiful. She wanted to stare at it for hours.
“Sienna!”
A thick wooden spoon knocked the fire out of her hands and onto the floor. Her mother yelled, stomping the fireball to death on the cold stones.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Sienna blinked a few times, her eyes adjusting to the sudden darkness.
“What were you doing?” her mother groaned, gently touching Sienna’s hot cheeks before examining her hands. “How long did you hold that flame?”
“I… I don’t know,” Sienna said, feeling dazed.
“Come upstairs,” her mother sighed. “We’ll need to wrap your hands. It’s a good thing your father isn’t home, or he’d have something to say about this. We’ll have to go to the healer before dinner.”
Sienna followed, finally noticing the blisters on her palms. She twitched her fingers, and pain shot through her hands. She made a few odd faces, seeing if her face was burned. It was hot and very dry, yes, but not burned.
Her mother put cold salve on strips of cloth, still telling Sienna about the dangers of fire. She wrapped her hands, muttering about how lucky Sienna was that her father hadn’t been the one to catch her. She rubbed salve on Sienna’s face, telling her to never practice magic alone.
Sienna sat there in patient silence, the dance of the fire playing in the back of her mind. She wanted to see it again. The fire called to her, telling her it was her friend. But the pain in her hands said differently.
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That night, Sienna knocked gently on the door to her father’s study. He called for her to come in. When she stepped inside he smiled.
“That’s right, your first fireball practice was today, wasn’t it?” he asked. “How’d you do?”
“Good,” she said. She looked down, clenching her freshly-healed hands. “I was wondering, have- have you ever looked into the heart of a fireball?”
His smile faded. “Have you?”
Sienna glanced up, looked back down, and nodded. “I- I wanted to practice more, so I went into the basement, and when I tried to grow the fireball I…”
“You looked directly at it and saw its soul,” he finished softly.
When she looked up he was watching something out the window. “Yeah.”
He sighed, and looked her in the eye. “Sienna. Promise me you will never practice alone again.”
“I promise.”
“Good. Come.”
He got up and went downstairs. They put on their shoes, and went to the shore of the river.
“Fire is a weapon,” he said, rolling up his sleeves. “It’s dangerous. It hurts, burns, destroys. Do you know why?”
Sienna shook her head.
“Because it’s trapped. Fire is lonely, and longs to be free.” He summoned a flame, and grew it into a fireball the size of his fist. “If you hold it in one place, it isn’t happy. It attacks. But if you dance with it…”
He stepped back, swinging his hand in an arc. The fire followed, trailing flames. He moved smoothly from side to side, tossing the fire from one hand to the other. The fireball almost sparkled like a star, spinning and trailing flames that ranged from near-white to crimson. As he moved, never taking his eyes off the fire, it seemed to gain a life of its own. It moved around his wrists and leapt high in the air, not controlled by him at all.
Smoothly, he slid the fire to his fingertips and tossed it to Sienna.
“Dance.”
Sienna caught the fireball, briefly panicking. She didn’t know what to do, how to move it. She’d barely learned how to summon fire, and now she was expected to control a flame that wasn’t hers?
She looked into the fire, and realized that was wrong. Sienna wasn’t going to control the fire. It was perfectly capable of controlling itself. And no, it wasn’t hers. Because no flame was truly hers.
“Sienna, dance.”
The fire spun clockwise, so she followed it. She moved in a circle, holding her palm flat. It wanted to go up, so she lifted it higher. The fire spiraled down her outstretched arm, leaping to her other hand when it reached her elbow.
Sienna danced. Clumsily, awkwardly at first, but soon she grew accustomed to the whims of the flame. It asked to go back to her father, so she sent it back. It danced with him a few minutes, and came back to her. After dancing and spinning a while longer, it shot up. It reached into the sky, flames of all colors coming off it to lick the stars, until the fireball itself was nothing more than a small red flame.
And then it was gone.
Sienna stood next to her father, both of them staring into the sky.
Finally he spoke.
“In school they’ll teach you to control fire, to master it. To become its friend, you have to let it hurt you. You have to know from personal experience how dangerous it is. They don’t want children to hurt themselves, so they’ll never say befriending fire is even possible. Friendly fire can still turn in an instant and demand to eat something you can’t allow it to eat, like a wooden floor. So teaching people to control it is always going to be safest.” He smiled at her. “But dancing with it is much more fun.”
Together they turned, walking back home.
“Dance with it at school tomorrow, try to guide its whims rather than control it,” her father said.
“Won’t I get in trouble, if I’m not learning how to master it?” Sienna asked.
“No, you’re more likely to get in trouble for practicing alone,” he answered. “Which reminds me: do not try dancing with fire at home. If I find any scorch marks on the ceiling or floor, you’ll be grounded for a week.”
Sienna nodded solemnly. “Only set fire to the walls. Got it.”
He smiled, rolling his eyes, and opened the door to their house.