Hexaflares
Hexaflares are the explosive flowers of the Kella Desert north of Varaar. Aero Ellisvat says almost every Varaarian learns of them at a young age, along with the dangers of straying off the path carved through that stretch of desert long ago: anyone who steps on one would not see it coming.[1] They can be harvested and put to a variety of uses, but they have to be handled in a very particular way.[1]
Appearance
A hexaflare is reddish-orange with a white centre.[1] They grow in patches, and Aero calls them quite unsuspecting, especially in the dark, which is what makes leaving the path at night dangerous.[1]
Harvesting
Farming hexaflares is careful work, and the people who do it say so themselves. One of a crew carting a load across the northern Kella told Reagan it was "a careful job, farming hexaflares".[1] Another of the same crew, a raccoon already down to one arm, said the work had nearly taken the other.[1]
What harvested hexaflares are actually used for is not established. Aero says only that the uses are various. Reagan, hearing him, could not imagine a use that did not involve total destruction, and decided that all things had a purpose, good or bad.[1]
The delivery to Obellius
Obellius Kalaar was collecting hexaflares by the wagonload. Reagan and Aero, crossing the northern Kella by night, came on a fire beside the path where a crew of three was camped with a covered wagon about the size of a small Earthen truck. Under the cover lay a mountain of the flowers stacked tightly on top of one another, several thousand of them, which the crew were carting to Obellius as a delivery he had trusted them with personally. They expected a promotion and a place among his top ranks for it.[1]
Why he wanted them is never stated. Reagan assumed some sort of attack and decided the delivery had to be stopped.[1]
It never arrived. When the crew turned on them, Aero reached into the campfire, took out a burning stick with his bare hand and threw it at the wagon. There was a sizzle and then a boom, and the blast threw the pair across the sand. Aero's hand came away blackened and covered in sores, Reagan was left seeing white and hearing only a ringing, and the crew were left in the wreck of it in the open desert.[1]
Behind the scenes
Hexaflares is listed in the pronunciation guide at the back of Sacred 2: Flames of the Awakened as Hexa-flares. The guide at the back of Sacred: Eslura's Calling does not carry the word, which first appears in the second novel.[2] The books use the plural throughout and never the singular.