Embers - Prologue (Draft)

The Life and Times of Adele of the Flames, So Far1

The girl’s eyes grew wider, flames flickering in their crimson depths. Flames leaped between her fingertips, swaying with the motion of the gentle evening breeze. She sighed gently, feeling the warmth of the tiny fire across her face. Some empty place within her felt fulfilled, fed, alive--since the first time she had tried this, she had felt almost…addicted to the feeling of conjuring fire. She couldn’t stop, couldn’t deny it, no matter how many times she was scolded for sneaking off out of the scout’s sights.2

A shout stopped her line of thought, and she looked up quickly. The flames slid from her fingers, almost liquid in their movement, and onto the grass below. One of the elven scouts who had scolded her this morning was running her way, eyes lit with anger. She scrambled up, thinking to bolt before he realized she had been starting fires again--but a glance down told her it was too late. Already the grass around her feet was crackling with flames, and smoke was rising to her nose. She doubled over, choking on the air, and felt someone shove her aside--more shouts, there must be more than one, she thought--3

Before she had even realized her feet had left the ground, iciness enveloped the girl. She inhaled sharply, then felt the icy water flood her mouth and throat. Her eyes stung, and there was only swirling darkness around her. She gulped for air again, but once again only the water filled her lungs.4

Above her, the elven scouts were focused solely on putting out the fire that her soul had conjured. Below them, the girl thrashed, forgotten.5

The girl continued to struggle through the darkening water, sinking deeper. Fish darted around her long white hair, wondering if perhaps when her body had long settled and decayed if they would still be able to play among its braids.6

A small bubble escaped her soft lips, and the girl slowly stopped struggling against the pull of the water.7

Darkness enveloped her, and she felt herself fading just before the hands of the scouts began to pull her back to the light.
She had always known she wasn’t an elf, of course. Beyond the white hair, face, and red eyes—which she was told was highly unusual, even for humans—the angelic and sharp faces of the elves she had grown up with made her look like a squat, pale orc.8

~9

Saveille, her wet nurse, had long ago explained to the curious girl that she would waste away and fade from Aber-Toril long before anyone she know grew so much as a wrinkle. And so would all humans.10

Adele had always wondered about them, humans. Daydreamed about a day when she would walk into the place of humans and they would welcome her and treat her as their own, as the elves had never done. Saveille and the others had often rang out in bells of laughter over stories of humans and their strange exploits—stories Adele could never understand, but had listened to in earnest fascination. She had long wondered what others of her kind looked like, smelled like, spoke like—perhaps they were graceful and fey-like?11

Well, wasn’t she in for a shock.12

The wagon door swung on its hinges, screeching quietly in her ear. Inside, the ale-bellied man laughed and extended a sweaty hand, encircled by six golden rings, each engraved with a symbol of a flame. For a moment, Adele’s eyes rested on the glinting engravings, drawn in. In the heat of the summer dusk, they seemed to dance and flicker in the man’s sausage-like hands.13

He laughed again, a bellowing sound from deep within his thick throat, and pulled her in with a grab of the arm and a grunt. The red-painted door swung shut behind her, and the wagon was once again rolling down the dusty road.14

The man was like nothing she had ever seen before. The very opposite of the elves she had lived so long with, he was rather dirty and smelly and swimming in rolls of fat. Adele felt a little sick to her stomache as he lighted a foul-smelling roll of herbs, and puffed the smoke of it towards her. She coughed awkwardly and continued to study the man for quite some time while he spoke enthusiastically of the fine merchandise he would find within Impiltur, apparently a very wealthy…Adele frowned. She had no image to attach to the word city, except that it was very big and apparently full of humans.15

“…and of course then, once I’ve saved up enough, I’ll be heading for the temple of Kossuth in the port town there—“ he took another puff of the cigar, he called it, and Adele’s ears perked up.16

“Kos-sooth?” she asked awkwardly. Her tongue was not often used even in Elven, and was still new to the language of humans that Saveille had given her a crash course in before her departure. “Who is…?”17

The man snorted and spread his arms out wide to each of his sides, grinning as the cigar slipped into his frizzed red beard. “Kossuth! Don’t you know him? Firelord himself, how can you not know him, ah? ‘Course, this isn’t Thay anymore. Where’re you from my lass?”18

Adele brightened up at his words. Firelord “Somewhere else,” she answered quietly, and the rough man gave a quick nod. Perhaps noting her interest in Kossuth, he pointed to the wall of the wagon, which was painted in golden flames.19

“Kossuth, you see, is the greatest god of them all. He is the Creator, the Destroyer—“ the man’s voice lowered to a whisper, and his eyes focusing on something beyond his veil of smoke and out the window, “—he tests us all in unexpected ways, demands nothing but respect, but strength, but for us to be powerful people in our own rights.” He glanced up at her, red eyes meeting brown. “I’ll be heading for the temple in the port town, as I said earlier. It’s right fancy, I’m told. You should visit it if you can. I can see His calling in your eyes—there’s something we children of the flames see in one another, and I see it in you, girl—“20

Adele gave to another fit of coughing, and leaned her head out of the window for some fresh air.
Her hair had gained some length since she had first entered the temple, years ago. A few trinkets had been added to its collection, braided in the long, white network that formed her hair. A fire opal she had pried from the statue of Kossuth in the main building, a few red and gold strings she had pried from one of the priests’ robes, and another little red feather to add to her first.21

~22

She glanced back at the temple, shining golden in the light of the setting sun. A small smile lit upon her lips at the sight of it, and she turned and continued along the road.
Fog swirled around the feet of those bustling by her, and danced around her breath. She glanced toward the sky, but even the washed out light of the sun stung her pale red eyes fiercely before she got anything more than a glimpse of the sky. Morning, she supposed sourly, judging by the sting of the cold.23

Adele coughed and drew her scarf closer to her face, squinted her eyes, and pulled her laborer‘s shade further over her eyes, blotting out the little sunlight. The rest of the passengers had long since left for Stonereach in such a hurry--why they were in such a hurry she would never know, but nevertheless, the girl followed after them into the misty forest beyond.