🔔 Scene I The Crown's Murmur (Pavilion, Present)
Feng Xian stands atop the Coral Ring, the tide-sheathed plateau where Pavilion disciples once meditated in silence.
"You are not whole."
"You are not hers. But you walk near her shadow."
He breathes in — and the sea pulls back.
Only for a moment.
But every Pavilion elder feels it.
Luo Fen senses it clearest. Not as power — but grief.
Even her serpent root tattoos recoil.
"You are a wound in the ocean, Feng Xian," she whispers.
"And wounds… attract flies."
A silence follows — broken only by the wind's sudden shift.
🔔 Scene II — Ember steps on Coral (Farther North)
The saffron-robed emissary from the Ember Song Sanctum descends a reef-cliff path lined in barnacle glyphs. They do not speak. They feel.
Each chime is wrong. Not because it detects lies — but because it detects incompleteness.
At a Cliffside shrine, an old Tide woven monk tries to bar their path.
"You come in peace?"
The emissary only nods once.
"And if he's already split?"
"Then we call down the Song that ends fire."
The monk lets them pass — hands trembling.
🌑 Scene III — Tshepo's Coil Deepens (Dream-Well Below)
Somewhere deeper than dreams, Tshepo unfurls once more — not before Feng Xian, but before another.
A blindfolded child, alone, humming the Crown's hymn in a tongue older than empires.
This is Ma'Ren, the last Drowned Oracle, soul-split to survive the Leviathan's roar. The deep doesn't forget her.
Tshepo whispers to her:
"The Crown stirs again."
"The Severing was not enough."
She weeps without tears. In her vision, the sea boils — not from fire, but from what fire left behind.
Something hollow rises in the ember's shadow.
And she too turns her gaze eastward.
To the Isles.
To the boy who holds the broken key.
🩸 Scene IV — Lan'Fei's Bond (Coastal Wilds)
Beasts gather near her.
Not to attack — but to circle, howl, mimic.
One ancient creature, part-seal, part-snake, old as the coral caves, bows its head when Feng Xian's name is spoken.
Lan'Fei stares at her own reflection in a tidal pool — and sees fire in her eyes.
"Not mine," she says.
"His — but it ripples outward."
She feels it.
The pull. The purpose.
And the fear that it may burn them all if left untethered.
🩸🪞 Scene V — Back at the Pavilion
A soft knock at the Pavilion's Deep gate.
The saffron emissary has arrived.
Elder Mira opens the gate — and freezes.
The bell rings three times, without wind.
"The Hollow is not the only hunger. We burn, too."
From the depths, something laughs — not hollow.
But ancient.
And furious.
Threads Now Intertwined:
Feng Xian feels his inheritance shift from burden to warfront.
The Ember song now walks the Pavilion's halls — uncertain if they've arrived too late.
Tshepo coils around something even the Hollow fears, watching the past unseal.
Lan'Fei gathers beasts and storms, drawn to what the Crown touches.
And somewhere beyond, the Devouring Hand and Szuul near the Isles' edge… the sea trembling with every step.