Wanda Embermoor's Arc

Chapter 1 of 10

Wanda Embermoor needed a fire hot enough to forge a crown, but her hands could barely hold a spark. She wanted a crown of everlasting fire, the mark that would make her queen of every ember in StarVeil. First she had to build a blaze that would not burn out. Her family's hearth had burned four generations before a thief stole its flame. She had reached in to save the dying fire bare-handed. Her hands came out black as coal. She dreamed again on the mausoleum floor. A cloaked figure lowered a torch onto sticks woven like a flower. She was tied to the pedestal. She begged them to stop. The fire climbed. She thrashed so hard she rolled off her makeshift bed and struck the cold stone. Wanda woke gasping. Ash coated the walls of the burned tomb around her. Just a dream. But her charred fingers still throbbed as if the flames were real. She thought of the shrine outside, and the goddess she had left years ago. Would the goddess forgive her? She did not wait to find out. She rose and crossed to the blackened altar at the center of the tomb. Old runes crossed its burned surface. This was a place for fire. She would make her forge here. Wanda held her ruined hands over the altar's hollow. She called for flame. A weak orange thread lifted from her palms, then guttered. Her fingers seized with pain. The fire died. She tried twice more. Each time her hands shook too badly to feed it. She could not build the heat a crown required. Sweat ran down her face. She stepped back and looked at the tomb. Charcoal-black trees stood outside the broken door, their bare limbs raised like fingers. Then she saw the torch mounted on the wall. Its coals glowed steady and bright, an ember-fire that never went out. She had walked past it a dozen times. She did not need to make new fire. She needed fire that would hold itself. Wanda lifted the torch from its bracket. The eternal flame warmed her scarred palms without stinging. She carried it to the altar and tipped the burning coals into the hollow. She did not have to feed the blaze with trembling hands. The fire fed itself. Heat rolled up in a rush, white at its heart. Hot enough. At last, hot enough to forge. A wet flutter came from the doorway. Wanda turned. A living eyeball hovered there, a vivid pink iris fixed on her, small cream wings beating. A trail of goo dripped beneath it. It watched her fire climb. Then it wheeled and flew off into the black trees. Wanda had her forge. But something had seen it, and now something knew where she was.