First Bonus Chapter!
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Several days after his rebirth in flame and unlocking that little fire spark in him, Jon was told he would not remain within the great temple of Volantis. He had been passing the time trying out little tricks with the flame.
However it was cut short. "The city is where faith is proclaimed," Azula had said softly, her crimson sleeves whispering across polished stone. "But power is forged elsewhere."
And so Jon was sent beyond the crowded districts and towering walls of Volantis, beyond the markets and canals and the looming Black Walls of the Old Blood, into the fertile countryside that embraced the city like a green sea. There, amid rolling vineyards, cypress groves, and quiet estates owned by devout patrons of the faith, stood the Red Faith's most guarded institution of learning.
They called it the Flame Hall.
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The Flame Hall was not visible from the main river road. It was built upon a low rise of dark stone overlooking a bend in the Rhoyne, where morning mists clung to the earth and dusk painted the sky in deep amber. It was both a fortress and sanctuary, temple and academy.
Unlike the towering splendor of the Great Temple in Volantis, the Flame Hall's grandeur was subtler but no less imposing. The complex was circular in design, built on a hill with flames rising from many places and lava rolling below into the caverns. It was near to the volcanic regions of the Valyrian ruins.
From above, the structure resembled a sunburst with long stone wings radiating outward from the central fire. The walls were crafted from reddish volcanic stone, darker and rougher than the polished temple blocks of the city.
At the outer perimeter ring walls were etched with ancient Valyrian glyphs of fire, protection, sacrifice, and rebirth. Iron braziers crowned the wall at equal intervals, each kept perpetually lit by rotating young students.
Two massive gates of blackened iron marked the entrance where Red Guards stood silently. Unlike the ornate doors of the Great Temple, these bore no images of triumph or divine glory. Instead, they were simple and severe, engraved only with a single symbol: a rising flame encircled by a ring. Knowledge contained. Power disciplined.
At the center of everything burned the Heart Pyre, a colossal circular fire pit lined with polished obsidian stone. The flames there were never allowed to die. They were said to have been kindled from the sacred fires of the Great Temple itself decades ago.
The pyre was not merely ceremonial. It was instructional. Here, new initiates learned their first lessons: control, endurance, communion. They meditated before it. They stood within arm's reach of it for hours. They extended their hands toward it, seeking connection.
The heat was immense, yet strangely focused. Jon noticed on his first day that the flames did not spread beyond the obsidian ring. They rose high, sometimes twenty feet but never crossed the boundary.
"It is not the flame that must be bound," said one of the instructors, a stern Red Apostle with burn scars mapping his forearms. "It is the will."
Around the Heart Pyre stood tiered stone seating like a small amphitheater. This was where lectures were held, sermons delivered, and demonstrations of advanced flame craft displayed. It was here Jon first saw what true mastery looked like.
For now though he got settled in, he was given the white and red robes of new initiates and had his own little room with the bare minimum a cot, wool blankets, wash basin and a single lantern that never extinguished.
Jon was brought before the Heart Pyre for formal initiation into the academy itself. This was separate from his spiritual rebirth. Here the four heads of the school stood there waiting for him and some students gathered to watch the fresh meat.
Red Priestess Azula was said to visit often, but she did not reside there permanently. The daily instruction fell to:
Red Priest Maelor, a gaunt man with a shaved head and eyes like smoldering coals. He specialized in flame control and more spiritual fire communion. His lessons were silent, grueling, and merciless. He instructed infinites not only to speak to the flame and control it, but also how to see through it.
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Red Priestess Nyra, older and serene with streaks of silver in her red hair. She taught the religious rites, the sacred ceremonies, and protective workings. She also specialized in the healing flames that she taught.
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Red Priest Volarik, youngest yet already formidable. He instructed in martial flame how to channel fire along weapons, armor, and the body itself. He also taught the crafts, how to work the flames to imbue and make sacred devices
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The fourth and most enigmatic of the school's leaders was Red Priestess Seraya. She specialized in illusory flames. The manipulation of perception, emotions, and people's psychology. Her lesions were subtle and deeply unsettling.
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Supporting them were a dozen Red Apostles, those who had proven devotion and competence but had not yet ascended to full priesthood. They acted as tutors, disciplinarians, and evaluators. They watched everything.
Jon stepped forward when his name was called. He knelt on warm stone. The fire swelled slightly as if acknowledging him. One of the priests recited an oath in High Valyrian, ancient words invoking discipline, obedience, and sacrifice. Jon repeated them in the Common Tongue, voice steady.
When he finished, a small iron brand shaped like a simple flame was heated in the brazier. He bit down the pain as it was pressed to flesh leaving a darkened sigil there. "You are not a true initiate of the flames."
The Hall functioned like a contained world. Beyond the central courtyard and Heart Pyre, the academy spread outward in organized rings of purpose. There were many specialized training areas
The martial training grounds were wide and open, covered in black gravel and ash-sand. Practice dummies made of treated wood stood charred from repeated drills. Here, controlled flame bursts were taught, to ignite blades, project controlled bursts of fire.
Near a cloister was a long corridor lined with braziers. Here, initiates walked barefoot over heated stone, reciting scripture while enduring rising temperatures.
There were also meditation chambers carved partly into the rock of the hill itself. These were quiet spaces with small central flames and minimal light. Students were assigned hours there weekly to practice communion listening to the flame rather than commanding it.
A refectory, kitchens, storage rooms, and a modest library completed the grounds. The library held texts on Valyrian history, flame rituals, recorded visions, and philosophical doctrine. Access to certain sections was restricted by rank.
Jon was older than many initiates but not the eldest. His Northern bearing made him stand out. So did his wolf, Ghost, who watched everything unfold silently. It had taken him a lot to get comfortable to the heat in Essos but he endured.
The initiates that made up the school ranged from young toddlers Rickon age to some at the cusp of his age. These children had been identified to be seen to have the talent for fire magic perhaps it could have been the way a spark danced differently near them, or how they stared too long into hearthfires without blinking.
Some families had sold them willingly to the Red Faith, believing service to the Lord of Light was an honor. Others had been persuaded by generous "donations." A few had been orphans claimed outright.They were called the fire children as they came from all over the world where the Red Faith had bases but most were from Volantis as this city seems to produce the most flame gifted children.
Standing out from amongst the rest were the Flame Scions, here there could be found some of the bastard offspring of the Old Blood families. The Red faith picked them out with promises of mastery over their gift in their blood. And many accepted since the faith of scions was well known. They burnt out quick.
Some Flame Children stared at him with curiosity. The Flame Scions regarded him with calculation. One silver-haired girl perhaps fifteen watched him often during drills. Her flames burned pink at the edges.
Jon felt the fire differently than the others. Where Scions commanded it like inheritance and Children coaxed it like play, Jon listened. And the fire listened back.
The Flame Hall operated like a monastery. At dawn, the Heart Pyre flared brighter as incense was cast into it. All initiates gathered barefoot around the obsidian ring. Chanting followed. Then drills.
Meals were simple made up of flatbread, lentils, river fish. Afternoons were devoted to specialized study: Flame reading (interpreting visions in fire), Heat endurance, Elemental theory, Historical doctrine, Controlled ignition exercises. Evenings ended with meditation before the Heart Pyre.
Physical conditioning extended beyond heat endurance. Students hauled wood, carried water from the river, and climbed the rocky slopes behind the Hall where geothermal vents warmed the earth. Strength and stamina mattered. Fire demanded a body capable of withstanding strain.
Between formal drills and study, initiates were assigned rotating duties that bound them to the living heart of the academy. Some tended the lesser braziers across the grounds, carefully feeding them measured fuel so the flames neither guttered nor raged. Others cleaned soot from stone walls, polished tiles around the hall or replaced cracked lantern glass. Maintenance was not punishment, it was instruction. If you could not care for flame properly, you had no right to command it.
In the quieter wings of the Hall, some students assisted in preparing ritual materials. They mixed incense resins, ground colored powders that altered flame hues, infused oils with herbs that changed the scent of burning fire.
Occasionally, traveling faithful from nearby towns and villages would come seeking blessings. Select initiates were allowed to observe these rites. They watched as priests performed purification over tools, blessed newborns with a brief touch of warm ash on the brow, or warded caravans before long journeys. Practical faith in action.
Besides their life in the Flame Hall most initiates time was taken up learning. Their days were filled with many lessons. The nights were about restraint and sight.
Under Maelor, Jon learned to sit for hours before a single candle without blinking. At first, his thoughts wandered to Winterfell, to the Wall, to ghosts of memory. The flame would gutter or lean away from him when his mind fractured. Maelor would say nothing, only extinguish the candle and make him begin again.
He learned how breathing altered flame. How emotion tugged at it. Anger made it lash. Doubt made it shrink. Calm steadied it. Maelor then pushed further teaching him to widen his sight. Jon began to see subtle color shifts in fire: pale blues at the base, streaks of white where heat intensified, strange flickers that seemed to respond to spoken names or thoughts. Once, staring too long, he thought he saw a battlefield reflected in the coals, snow and ash swirling together. Maelor forced him to step away before vision became obsession.
Besides looking and communing with the flame, they were taught how to manipulate it. They did creative exercises, shaping flame into controlled patterns; rings, spirals, steady columns without letting them collapse. Others experimented with color variations. These were not spectacles for vanity, but refinements of precision.
Under Nyra, Jon's training expanded beyond meditation. He memorized rites; birth blessings, voyage consecrations, purification ceremonies for those seeking redemption. He practiced drawing warding sigils in ash and oil across doorframes and shields. At first his lines were uneven. The ash clumped. The oil smeared. Nyra made him wash them away and begin again.Precision mattered.
He assisted in funeral pyres, learning how to build them so the flame rose clean and bright instead of choking the air with smoke. He stood beside Nyra as she consecrated merchant ships, watching captains bow their heads while she pressed heated sigils into wood for protection against storm and sabotage.
He also practiced under her main art of healing, they started with cauterizing wounds, using controlled heat to slow bleeding, and preparing herbal poultices.
Training with Volarik was relentless. Mornings began with endurance drills from running the temple steps under the sun, holding heated blades without flinching, learning exactly how much warmth steel could bear before warping. Jon burned his palms more than once. Volarik offered no sympathy, only correction.
He practiced channeling warmth into the edge of a training sword, first a faint shimmer of heat, then brief flashes of ignition. Sustaining it without exhausting himself proved far harder than summoning it.
But Volarik's lessons were not only martial. Jon learned how different steel respond to heat, how to prepare oil mixtures that altered burn temperature. How to line armor with treated cloth resistant to heat. How to construct portable braziers used in public rituals or battlefield encampments.
He worked in the temple's forge in the afternoons, hammering, reheating, and adjusting as sparks bit into his forearms. Their main project was to build their own ritual blade.
Evenings belonged to Seraya. The Flame Hall would be darkened. Only a few torches remained lit. Seraya would demonstrate how the smallest spark could dominate attention if placed in shadow correctly. She altered flame colors with powdered resin; crimson flares, ghostly greens, dazzling whites.
More than these spectacles for now she drilled them in mental resilience. How to resist her mental might which would be a boon to controlling the illusory flame and withstanding more powerful foes. Students were told to resist suggestion, to separate what was truly happening from what their minds believed they saw.
The advance stuff soon came when they were ready. They learned to make flames mimic shapes and motion—dancing animals, flowing water, even fleeting shadows of people. The fire could be made to whisper names or echo gestures, tricking observers' senses. Some exercises involved combining colors and movement to create entire illusory landscapes.
As the weeks passed, Jon's training broadened far beyond meditation, blade work, and warding rites. The Flame Hall did not raise narrow specialists. It shaped instruments of the Faith.
Some days were devoted to adaptability. Initiates were taken beyond the main courtyard into the surrounding countryside and told to work with whatever fuel the land offered; damp wood, dry grass, animal fat, resin from trees.
They learned how flame behaved differently in open wind versus enclosed space, in rain-heavy air versus dry heat. Control in ideal conditions meant little; mastery meant adjusting to anything.
There were exercises in restraint where students were ordered not to summon flames. Instead, they had to solve problems using heat already present; redirecting sunlight through polished metal, insulating warmth beneath stone, preserving embers for hours without visible glow. The lesson was subtle: true command did not always mean visible fire.
Throughout all of it, Jon excelled. He did not just keep pace with the most powerful initiates, the flame scions, the children of the Old Blood whose inherited power often made them seem untouchable, he surpassed them entirely. Their bursts of brilliance flickered and waned, dependent on lineage, temperament, or sheer ego.
Jon, by contrast, moved with a quiet inevitability, a natural command of fire that seemed to bend every exercise to his will. He seemed to have a very close affinity with the flames, they were like an extension of him.
Some whispered he was also a flame scion from a northern woman but even among the flame scions he surpassed them, usually trumping them. His flames were more potent, more purer, more alive, more nobler…it took on a golden color in its natural state when he called on it.
The instructors watched with both admiration and unease as they never saw such a talent. Volarik, who had seen countless warriors wield fire and steel in tandem, could not push Jon beyond a certain point. He combined flame and motion with a fluidity no student had ever shown, adapting to new weapons, adjusting the heat, improvising maneuvers instinctively.
Under Maelor, Jon's vision exercises reached new heights and his mastery of the flame was beyond superb. With Nyra, Jon's rituals and warding exercises took on an elegance no other initiate could match. And he easily took to mastering the healing flame.
Seraya's lessons, perhaps the most subtle and dangerous of all, revealed Jon's true nature. He resisted her mental manipulations effortlessly. He could shape the perception the flame caused with ease, producing flickering images, shifting colors, and fleeting shadows that left observers questioning their own eyes.
Even when the instructors pushed him to extremes; long vigils, blazing for hours, forging and recasting metal in scorching heat Jon adapted without strain. Every trial revealed a latent potential, a flame within him no one could extinguish.
Other students grew envious, sometimes bitter, at how easily he surpassed them in every discipline. He did not boast. He did not flaunt his skills. He simply did what was asked, mastered what was given, and achieved beyond what was necessary. There was no denying that he would become a force the Red Faith had never seen.
In quiet moments, Jon sometimes wondered why fire responded to him so readily, why his hands could summon heat that others struggled with, why he could sustain flame without exhausting himself. But he had no answers. All he knew was that every day, every exercise, every meditation and trial, he could feel it, the deep, resonant pulse of something ancient, waiting within him, waiting to burn.
By the time the first year drew to a close, Jon was no longer simply an initiate learning the ways of the Flame Hall. He was its brightest spark, the standard to which all others were measured, and a living testament to the power that lay hidden in the greatest of bloods.
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More info on Spell Levels
Level 0
These are cantrips. They form the foundation of a spellcaster arsenal.
Basic spells that produce minor effects. Useful for day to day as they do not expend that much energy. These spells cause minor damage but are very versatile, scalable, and common.
These are the little spells that those with an inkling of talent can produce naturally or with a bit of study.
Level 1
These are the true spells. They are the product of many years of study of the higher mysterious when you step through the door of the world of magic. These spells are alive with possibility and grant much power, making you stand high above the mundane.
These spells mark the moment a spellcaster moves beyond "dabbling in magic" into actual mastery of arcane, divine, or natural forces. They are where the spark of magical talent becomes tangible power capable of altering the course of an encounter, the environment, and your life.