Chapter 1

Before she'd turned two, Tanya could hold fire in the palm of her hand.

Unlike her first death, when she'd argued with that insufferable Being X, Tanya could not recall the details of her second death quite so easily.

She'd been on a high-risk mission, and remembered flashes of the scowl on that hate-filled zealot Mary's face as she fired round after round at her; each shot laying waste to the city beneath as they rampaged through the sky.

Had Mary dealt her a killing blow? Or had she collapsed with exhaustion and plummeted to her death after the battle? Tanya wasn't sure, but without the benefit of seeing time frozen around her, her memories of her final moments were hazy.

Although perhaps final wasn't quite the right word, because after awakening from what felt like a very long slumber once again, Tanya found herself reincarnated for a third time.

The world was different, though in what was doubtlessly a poor attempt at irony, Tanya's life story was strikingly similar to her previous incarnation.

She had been born into a world at war: the daughter of a common soldier who she assumed had perished in the conflict, and whose mother had quickly decided she was not ready to handle the responsibilities of parenting alone. Thus mere days after her birth she had been left in the care of a religious orphanage.

Once she had gained a fine enough control of her motor functions to explore, Tanya set about gathering information about her latest world.

Her first guess that she had been born into a section of imperial Japan that really loved the colour red had proven close, but not entirely accurate. This world was divided into four nations, and her new homeland called itself the Fire Nation.

It was a militaristic empire ruled by a figure known as the Fire Lord, and though the technology in this world was sadly far behind the previous worlds she'd inhabited, the Fire Nation was at least the most technologically advanced of the four; boasting metal ships, tanks and the beginnings of other marvels of military engineering.

The Fire Nation had instigated the current war nearly a hundred years ago, and if the propaganda available at her orphanage was to be believed it was set to win in the next decade or so.

Speaking of her orphanage, Tanya's new home was the Cerulean Orphanage; an extension wing of the High Temple in Capital City. The organisation who ran it were a strange group that called themselves the Fire Sages.

Tanya had at first believed it was an on-the-nose reference to the name of her nation, but had soon been proven wrong after witnessing a fascinating sight.

Firebending.

She'd only been a few months old when she'd first seen it. Although the Fire Sages were responsible in theory for running the orphanage, in practice their involvement was in organisation only. The ones who did the majority of the work were the nuns.

There was one sage though, a relatively young and mousey looking man named Hazar, who would occasionally drop by to entertain the children with stories about legendary heroes who commanded flames and fought dragons.

Tanya had been listening half-heartedly to one such story when, out of nowhere, Hazar had decided to emphasise his story about how mighty the dragon's roar was by tilting his own head back and mimicking it. When a genuine jet of sparkling red flames had shot out of his mouth she had fallen off her chair in surprise.

Soon it became clear that the four nations were named for more than just their preferred colour schemes. Some people in the fire nations possessed the power to telepathically manipulate fire through the act of moving their bodies in controlled movements reminiscent of ancient martial arts.

Once Tanya had mastered speaking with her new mouth, a few quick questions revealed that members of the other nations could manipulate their named elements in much the same way.

Once she'd discovered this a new question had popped up in Tanya's mind. Was she a firebender? It was no great secret that all firebenders were conscripted into military service as soon as they were able, and it was definitely Being X's style to grant her a curse disguised as a blessing.

Just like he'd given her great magical power in her previous life knowing that it would force her to fight at the frontlines, had he given her the power to firebend in this life, knowing it would force her into the war once again?

Though logically she knew the best option would be to never uncover whatever talents Being X may or may not have given her, resisting the urge to try it proved a surprisingly tough challenge.

Something in her chest, something hot and powerful not dissimilar to the feeling of mana, ached whenever she was near a naked flame, bringing with it a longing to reach out and touch it.

She did well resisting the urge for as long as she did, but a few weeks before her second birthday the temptation proved too much.

She'd been alone in the library, reading a book of the history of the world in the candlelight, and had let her guard down. Her breathing had slowed, unknowingly rising and falling with the faintest flickering of the candle, and before she knew it the beauty of the tiny little flame had transfixed her.

She reached out, plucking it from the candle wick as easily as picking a grape from a vine, and levitated it above her finger as she gazed deep into it, not even questioning how the flame did not fade away without fuel.

A sharp gasp snapped her back to reality, and Tanya snuffed the flame in the palm of her hand as her eyes shot upwards.

One of the fire sages was watching her with wide eyes, his expression caught between surprise and awe. Whatever hopes she'd had of dismissing it as a trick of the light were quickly shattered as the sage scooped her up into his arms and took her to see the head sage.

While firebenders were not uncommon, most children did not discover their gift until the age of five or later. Those few who discovered it earlier were hailed as prodigies, but even among them it was unheard of for anyone to discover their gifts at the age of one.

And so it was that, much to her great annoyance, Tanya was singled out as a genius among geniuses, and began private lessons with the fire sages in the art of firebending at the tender age of two.

Whether she liked it or not the path to becoming a master firebender had been thrust upon her. A path that would doubtlessly lead into the battlefields once again.