The Awakened World
FJORdLANDI
The Ice Kingdom, ruled by the Ice King
Fjordlandi
(pronounced fyord-LAND-ee)
Fjordlandi is both a frozen and fiery world, where volcanoes ring the island nation, which is otherwise so far north it’s frozen over…and helped along by the magical, called Blessed, who control the snows and ice. Based on Scandinavia (especially Iceland), this is a land of gorgeous auroras—at least, when you can see the sky. Snowstorms dominate most of the land, most of the time.
The exception are the greenhouse domes, enormous domes (much like the ones the mer use to survive underwater) that trap warmth both from the sun and geothermal vents, creating the Warm Lands that are populated by thanes, the commoners derisively called “farmlings” by the ruling class of Fjorders. Thanes are so accustomed to the warmth of the domes, they have a hard time dealing with the cold that is to be found outside the domes, so they’re usually in thick furs and wools.
The Fjorders, on the other hand, have adapted to the cold and rarely even wear a coat. Though all Fjordic people tend toward fair coloring—blond hair, blue eyes—Fjorders’ skin has an almost blue cast to it, where thanes have pinker skin.
Then there are the Blessed, the magically gifted whose blood mixes Fjorder with thane, who are so immune to the cold they parade around in sheer materials to prove their superiority.
The greenhouse domes are situated all around Fjordlandi, on the Ice Plains, wherever geothermal vents are active enough to sustain them. There is also mining that thanes do in the volcanic mountains near the domes. And there’s one wild stretch of forest known as the Great Forest, which is so untamed that few venture into it. Fjorders live mostly in “open cities,” which are not under domes.
In Aflame, the story is set primarily in the capitol city of Reykstoll, where the Ice Palace reigns from the base of Mt. Helviti, Fjordlandi’s largest and most active volcano.
The Ice King and the Two Councils
Isidor is the reigning king in Aflame, having inherited the Ice Crown from his father…though he could at any time be Challenged. Below the Ice King are two ruling bodies called the Two Councils. The Great Council is comprised of elected officials…though they are predominately Fjorder, despite thanes outnumbering them by a huge margin. The real power, however, is in the High Council, which is made up of the twelve most powerful Blessed after the sovereign and his heir.
Both the king and any High Council member can be issued a Challenge, at which point a Trial is held. The Trials determine who the most powerful magical people are, and hence who holds office.
Isidor’s father, Axel, won the throne through a Challenge. Isidor has proven himself stronger than the High Council many times, so no one has ever dared to issue him a Challenge. All Blessed in Fjordlandi must be ranked, though, so minor Challenges and Trials are held regularly to determine those ranks. This is high entertainment to everyone in Fjordlandi, even the thanes under the domes, who are shown recordings of them.
It is well established in Fjordlandi that the fires of emotion melt the ice necessary to rule well and control this frozen magic, so they are a stoic people…generally speaking.
In Aflame, our heroine, Kyrja (short for Valkyrja, prounounced “KEER-ya”) is the third child of Isidor, and though she has magic, she really only uses it to create art. Though her older brother, Einar (Crown Prince) has been trying to train her in the brutal strength required to maintain the ice and snows of Fjordlandi, it always feels meaningless to her. She’d rather use her magic to make people smile.
Princess Kyrja
King Isidor
Faith System
Though once a Christian nation worshiping the Giver (as they call God) and his Onlyborn Son, Fjordlandi is predominately atheist at this point; first Axel and now Isidor have systematically made it more and more difficult for churches to remain open, and faith is considered a weakness for the thanes, something to be shunned by the logical Fjorders and Blessed. Though traditional ceremonies are still held in the Grand Kyrka (main cathedral) in Reykstoll for things like coronations and christenings, they are thought to be purely for the sake of tradition.
Even weddings are rarely held in the kyrka (church) among the elite. Such unions are deemed too important to be ruled by something as changing as emotion, so marriages are arranged and contracts are made that last a span of time and/or until a set number of offspring have been produced.
Clergymen are called dominies, and at the time of Aflame, there is only allowed to be one dominie per kyrka, which means sixty in all the land. And no new ones can be trained up until a dominie either reaches 60 years of age or has been deemed ill enough to need a replacement…which means that there are regularly unfilled pulpits, when someone passes away unexpectedly. At which point, the kyrka is shut down by order of the king.
Scripture is referred to as the Words…though owning a copy is highly frowned upon, and carrying it around outside your home is an arrestable offense. (Though our hero, Nik, does it anyway. He wanted to study to become a dominie, but there were no vacancies.)
Though the Grand Kyrka in Reystoll has crystal columns much like the cathedrals in Daryatla, stories of a Song of Ice and Snow inside it have been relegated to legend.
The Grand Kyrka
Nikanor Tristansson
Magic System
The magic system in the Awakened world is the same in all kingdoms, though there are unique qualities to each. “Beauty follows magic” is a truism in the Awakened world, and magic not only grants one control of the given element, but also long life and good health. The known magic is control of water, and water is a key element in the Awakening Ceremony, which is the foundational, most sacred ceremony in the kingdoms.
It begins with a crystal bowl of water—usually fresh water in Fjordlandi—and a curved blade called the Awakening Blade, made of titanium.
Only someone already Awakened can preside over the ceremony. They wield the Blade, making a small cut in the finger of each young person and spilling a single drop of blood into the bowl of water. If they have dormant magic waiting in their veins, the drop of blood won’t just make a red cloud like normal blood does, but it will make instead a subtle flourish…though it sometimes takes a trained eye to see it.
This is referred to as priming the blood. The Blade does something to the blood, though what, exactly, is a bit mysterious to the people. Scientists have finally isolated nanites that live in the blood of every Awakened, which kill off disease and keep them young, but they don’t yet have technology that allows them to see how these nanites are reacting to the Blade.
What they’ve long known, however, is that a second step is required to fully Awaken someone, to make the latent potential into something active. They need a drop of blood from someone already Awakened.
So when the one conducting the ceremony spots that telltale flourish, they will then cut their own finger and lower both it and the still-cut finger of the other person into the bowl. With the water as a conduit, they send their blood out, toward the other person’s finger. When the magical blood encounters the wound, it Awakens the nanites in that second person’s blood, which feels like a zap of electricity to the newly Awakened individual.
But as with any magic, any strength, it has its weaknesses too. Awakened blood has no natural clotting agent and requires something else to help it clot. In the case of water magic, it’s water… for those in Fjorlandi, it’s specificially snow.
Magic only occurs in the meeting of people from two different worlds. In the case of Fjordlandi, one must have blood from both thanes and Fjorders. These two people groups, however, despise one another. Thanes are basically a slave race. So the scientists of Fjordlandi created a machine that runs what they call the Test; testing the blood of thanes against a chosen Fjorder who has been selected for a Blessed Union, to find the match most likely to create magical offspring, called the Blessed. Once identified, that thane must submit to a contractual union for a set period of time or until two offspring are produced.
In Fjordlandi, two Blessed have never created a child with more than very-weak magic. The Test is necessary even among the rulers to find a match likely to produce a strong magical child.
Fire Magic
Each book will introduce a “new” magic as well. In Aflame, we quickly meet those who already hold this magic. Instead of power over water, this fire magic gives them control of the lava and magma flows in the volcanoes that ring Fjordlandi. Called “the Cursed,” (as opposed to the Blessed that have power over snow and ice) these people live inside the lava flows and tubes of Mt. Helviti and control the country’s volcanic activity. The fire does not burn them or their hair, and they’ve been given flame-resistant leathers to wear. (Inspired a bit by the three in the fiery furnace in Daniel!)
