"Suppressing it is not the answer." Morana said gently. "It might seem like the easiest solution but it will not be effective long term. Your fire is not separate from you. The power to control fire is no less a part of you than your blood or your soul. It isn’t so dangerous thing you’re keeping locked in a cage. It isn’t an enemy. It ca from your bloodline. It was passed down through House Silhara, the sa way it ca to and to my father before . It is yours by birth."
Right then the look on his face was mostly unreadable but she could tell that he was hanging on her every word.
"The fact that it has been unruly isn’t a flaw in you, Ragnar. It’s what happens when an ability goes years without guidance. Without instruction. Without soone to teach you what it is and how to live with it. Fire doesn’t have to be so wild and unpredictable," she said. "In the right hands, it is precise. It listens. It doesn’t go anywhere it isn’t directed."
She stood up and took several asured steps toward him.
Ragnar watched her approach, yet made no move to retreat. When his gaze lifted to et hers, there was no wariness in his eyes, only curiosity as he waited to see what she would do next.
Months ago he might not have allowed her this close at all. Now they spoke freely with each other.
Morana stopped within arm’s reach. "Hold out your hand palm up."
Ragnar blinked in confusion but still did as he was told.
Slowly, she raised her hand and held her palm an inch over his. Close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his skin, but not close enough to touch.
She kept it there for a few seconds before summoning her fire.
A thin stream of warmth erged first, no larger than a candle fla. It flowed between their hands like a living current, neither touching him nor burning him.
She used her power to gently coax his own out from where it had hidden away and by the ti she withdrew her hand, a flicker of orange light appeared in the center of his palm. Fragile enough that a careless breath might have extinguished it.
The fla sat in his hand and just like Morana’s fla, this one did not burn him.
Ragnar stared down at it. His expression did not change, but Morana could see the slight disbelieving glint in his eyes.
Before now, he had viewed this ability as sothing destructive. Sothing dangerous. Sothing to be feared.
Now it rested in his palm, tiny and looking almost harmless.
"I can teach you how to control it properly if you want," she suggested, unable to suppress a smile as Ragnar remained completely captivated by the tiny fla dancing in his palm. "But it will take ti and patience. You’ll have to keep trying even when it feels uncertain. Even when it feels like you’re making no progress at all."
That earned the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. "I would appreciate that."
***
They began the next morning in the courtyard before the sun had properly risen.
The palace was only beginning to wake. Servants were already moving about, and guards were changing shifts, but the courtyard itself remained quiet.
Morana was already there when Ragnar arrived. Truthfully, she hadn’t been entirely certain he would co. Agreeing to sothing and following through were not always the sa thing, especially where his fire was concerned. He had spent most of his life being unaware that he possessed this ability and when he finally learned of it, he made it a point to avoid using it.
Still, he had co, which showed he wanted to learn, or at the very least, was curious to know more.
Morana wasted no ti with pleasantries, jumping straight into the matter at hand.
"The first lesson isn’t about creating fire," she said. "It’s about understanding it."
Ragnar listened as she explained the difference between fire and shadow magic.
"Shadow responds to intention. You decide what you want it to do, and it follows that direction."
That matched his experience. Shadow magic had always felt natural to him.
"Fire is different," Morana continued. "It responds to emotion. To your state of mind. That’s why it’s harder to control under pressure. The stronger the emotion, the stronger the response. Fire doesn’t misbehave, Ragnar. It reflects like a mirror. When you’re calm, it’s calm. When you’re not, it isn’t."
"Where does the boundary lay between intention and emotion when controlling fire?" He asked, the wheels of his mind already turning.
The question surprised Morana. She had not considered how much thought he had already given the subject.
Rather than answer imdiately, she demonstrated. A small fla appeared in her palm.
As it burned, she talked him through the process. Not the physical act of summoning it, but the ntal discipline behind maintaining it. She explained the balance required to keep it steady in her hand and how she adjusted that balance as the fla grew larger.
She let the fire expand, shrink, vanish, and return several tis while continuing her explanation.
Then she lowered her hand.
"Your turn."
Ragnar looked down at his palm, brown furrowed in concentration as he tried to conjure up a fla the size of hers but nothing happened.
He tried again and a small flickering fla appeared and vanished almost imdiately.
"Again," Morana said.
The third attempt lasted several seconds before fading. A hint of frustration crossed his face but it didn’t diminish his eagerness to learn.
They spent the rest of the morning that way. Morana would give him a single thing to focus on, Ragnar would attempt it, and she would adjust her instruction based on what she observed.
The progress was gradual.
Several tis his concentration slipped and the fla flared wider than intended. Each ti he tensed, expecting a loss of control.
Morana remained calm and patient with him, even when he made mistakes. She never seed bothered when he got sothing wrong, nor did she judge him for it. In turn, Ragnar began extending that sa grace to himself.
He may have hurt Circe by accident, but one mistake was not a reason to abandon a part of who he was.
By late afternoon, he could produce a controlled ball of fire in his cupped hands and hold it there for so ti without it growing or shrinking beyond his intent. It was not large, and the strain of concentration was evident in the tightness of his expression, but the fla remained steady. It was his, and it was entirely under his control.
As he stared down at the soft glow dancing between his palms, a powerful sense of accomplishnt washed over him. To anyone else, it might have seed insignificant—a small fla no larger than a lantern’s light—but to him it felt monuntal. For the first ti, this part of himself did not feel wild or unpredictable.
More importantly, it gave him hope. Hope that one day he would be able to explore this aspect of his existence without fear or hesitation. Hope that he would no longer regard it with wariness, but with the sa certainty and confidence as Morana.
He held the fla for a few seconds longer before slowly closing his hands around it and letting it vanish.
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