After a mont, he asked, "What was the daughter like afterward? What did the ritual do to her?"
Seeing how invested he was in learning about their history, she chose to further indulge his curiosity.
"When she ca down from the mountain, her eyes carried a strange ember glow and her skin was almost hot to the touch. Heat affected her differently than it affected ordinary people. She could walk through fire and not get burned. The flas she produced burned hotter than ordinary fire and were almost impossible to put out."
The wings that occasionally surfaced among Silhara descendants were also part of that inheritance. Nythera’s essence never expressed itself the sa way in every generation, and not every mber of the bloodline manifested all of it. So inherited stronger flas. So developed extraordinary resistance to heat. A few manifested draconic wings. But all of it traced back to the sa source. Nythera.
The fire burning in his hands wasn’t just power. It was part of a long history. A remnant of an ancient dragon whose essence still flowed through the Silhara line till this day, thousands of years after its death.
He glanced briefly at her visible wings without comnt. It was yet another manifestation of Nythera’s essence.
House Silhara spent the generations after the Beast Age learning how to use what Vesper had given them. During the Chaos Wars that followed, they weren’t the wealthiest house, nor were they the most politically sophisticated. They earned their ducal seat because they were effective.
They cleared battlefields that no one else could clear. They broke sieges that had dragged on for years. They ended campaigns that other commanders considered unwinnable. The other noble houses learned very quickly that having House Silhara as an enemy was a problem and generally not worth the hassle.
Over ti, House Silhara beca sothing harder to categorize as simply ruthless. The fire they controlled made people focus on their fighting prowess, but House Silhara had also produced scholars, administrators, and tacticians alongside its pyromancers.
They had a reputation for being fiercely brutal and it took less than four generations after the Chaos Wars to develop because the first few Silhara dukes had not yet figured out that terror was a useful tool in warti and a liability in peaceti.
Morana suspected he understood the distinction better than most, as he was quite familiar with war and all that ca with it.
"My father used to talk about that often. He was the one who taught that fire is sothing to understand rather than simply use. He believed knowing the origin of an ability changes how you relate to it." She sounded oddly lancholic whenever she spoke about her father. Still carrying the wound of losing him so cruelly, despite the decades that had passed since his death. "He made learn the full history of Vesper and Nythera before he ever showed the first technique for controlling fire. I rember being annoyed by it at the ti. I wanted to learn how to use the ability, and instead he spent weeks teaching history. But he insisted it mattered and he was correct."
Sothing she said earlier caught his attention. "If the fire is resistant to ordinary thods of extinguishing it, does that an it can only be put out by the person wielding it?"
Morana nodded.
"Yes. That’s also why it’s so important to learn proper control. Once the fire leaves your hands, it doesn’t respond to water or standard counterasures the way ordinary flas do. It has to be recalled or extinguished by the source.
If a Silhara loses control of their fire, the problem doesn’t simply solve itself because soone dumped enough water on it.
The fire no longer seed like a simple useful ability. It was sothing more dangerous than he had initially assud. Sothing that if not properly controlled, could destroy everything in its path.
After a few monts, he asked one final question. "Does the ability skip generations, or does every Silhara descendant carry it?"
"It doesn’t skip generations exactly," Morana replied. "But it doesn’t always surface on its own. In so descendants, it has to be drawn out. In others, it awakens naturally. I wasn’t entirely sure you possessed it at all. You’re only half demon, after all. Unawakened fire abilities can remain completely dormant for an entire lifeti.
Ragnar nodded once. "We should continue."
Morana inclined her head.
The lesson resud from where they left off.
They spent the rest of the morning working on several exercises and techniques.
The difference after their conversation was noticeable.
By the ti the lesson neared its end, he managed to hold the fla perfectly stable for a long period of ti and for the first ti that morning, there was the faintest hint of satisfaction in his expression.
It was gone almost imdiately. After another mont, he extinguished the flas in his palms. It was as easy as breathing.
When the lesson was over, he gathered his things and turned toward the palace main entrance.
"I’ll be here tomorrow morning." The statent was simple and matter-of-fact.
rely an assumption that their next lesson was already decided, as he had already started looking forward to the ti they spent together each morning.
Morana found herself smiling. "Very well then."
Ragnar gave her a nod before turning and walking away.
She watched him disappear and as she remained where she was, the mory ca unexpectedly. mories of her father regaling her with old stories of ancient tis when the beasts still ruled Innermost, long before the arrival of The seven ruling houses.
The next lesson was never treated as a possibility, but as a certainty. There would always be another lesson the following day, and the day after that. Neither of them seed capable of imagining a future in which those lessons would simply stop.
After his death, the sudden absence of it was one of the things she found hardest to bear.
Sotis she thought Ragnar reminded her of her father. In monts like these and it always left a bittersweet feeling in her heart. One touched equally by fondness and loss.
After a while, she left the courtyard as well.
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