At first, it burned me. It hurt me.

For many years my master told me that power was it all. I saw him caressing that little flame trapped in the sphere like a mother caressing her child. When he went to bed he took the sphere to his room and lay with it.

It hurt me.

He was like a father to me, my real parents died after some accident that I don’t remember. He took care of me, fed me, and taught me magic. But every day he looked at that little flame as if it were another child.

At first, I was curious about it. Then I started to feel some jealousy.

“What is so special about that fire?” I asked him once at the dinner table. His plate was nearly empty as he was starting to eat less and less. “Why do you care about it so much?”

My master—no, my father— was taking care of that thing more than me. As I grew older he stopped caring about me, my lessons.. even feeding me. I learned to do things on my own. In a sense that was a blessing since I was self-sufficient before I was 18, but a kid needs love and attention.

“You don’t understand,” he said without taking his eyes off it. “I do not care what makes it special right now, I care what it can be in the right hands.” That was the last time we talked about it.

His words haunted my dreams night after night. I wanted to find meaning to what he said. The potential of the fire that he had alluded to me. Was it that powerful? Could a wizard control that kind of power? And what will he become if he did?

That night I took the fire while he was asleep. I grabbed the sphere and stared into it. It looked at me, like an eye. I saw colors, images, creatures, all within the dancing of the flames. I felt its power.

I dropped the sphere; it was too much for me.

The crystal shattered at my feet. It was on my body. It burned me. It hurt me.

My master woke up and looked at me. “Fool! What have you done?!”

The fire spread “Master! Help me!” I screamed as the fire engulfed me, melting my skin.

“That was my power!” he shouted “That was supposed to be mine!”

Rage boiled inside me even during the pain I was experiencing. When I was burning to death, he cared more about the fire than me. He only cared about the power it could give him.

A symbol appeared in front of me. I raised my hand and drew the rune, transparent and floating in the air, enduring the pain.

“No! Stop it!” he yelled as he raised his hands to stop me.

But it was too late. The symbol appeared between us and the pain stopped.

I felt all the fire in my body raise to my shoulders and then to my head. All the images I saw, all it's knowledge poured into my head. My master saw me with a combination of fear and jealousy.

“No…no”

“Do you want it?” I said, noticing that my voice changed.

“You can have It." I opened my hand and my master was engulfed.