Scene I — The Pavilion's Choice
The Emissary of Ember song stands within the Leviathan's Spine Hall. No weapon. No threats. Only a smoldering scroll bound in copper wire — inscribed in Flame-Script no Pavilion elder can fully read.
Elder Mira speaks first.
The Emissary's voice is hollow and heat-warped:
"Because his fire was meant to be sealed. Not stirred."
The scroll is set upon the table. It hisses, steam curling from its sides.
"The Crown has begun to thirst," the Emissary says.
"And you have fed it."
A younger Pavilion warrior steps forward — angry, proud.
"What would you do, monk of ash? Chain him? Burn him?"
"No," says the Emissary. "We would show him the Flame That Waits."
A silence falls.
The Flame That Waits was a myth — a spark sealed beneath a buried temple far inland, said to be the first fire ever touched by a human soul.
"If he does not learn from it," the Emissary whispers, "then it will awaken on its own."
And then nothing will remain.
Scene II — The Bone Armada's Return
A sea-bridge of rib and scale parts the waters near the outer reef. The Bone Armada reforms — not by wind or sail, but by summoning.
From a cavern of drowned suns, the High Hollow Priest begins his rite of Calling:
He speaks a name older than the ocean, never meant to be remembered.
His voice splits coral.
The Leviathan twitches in its sleep.
The deep bends — and listens.
And from that depth… a beacon of hunger begins to pulse.
It echoes east, toward a storm-lit sky.
Toward a reef where Lan'Fei stands with beasts at her back.
Scene III — Tshepo's Watch Below
Far beneath, Tshepo coils between cold dreams — not awakened, but startled.
The Hollow rise.
The Crown awakens.
And now… the First Flame is stirred.
"He moves toward the Temple…"
"…The one we buried twice."
A deep tremor follows — not from Tshepo.
But from something deeper still, once sealed beside the Flame.
"He does not know what he carries," Tshepo hisses.
"Nor what will answer."
Scene IV — Feng Xian's Dream-Wound
He stirs.
The Crown whispers, but not in words — in emotion:
Longing.
Guilt.
Anger.
His veins burn cold as memory coalesces:
A ruined altar of obsidian.
Fire shaped like a serpent.
A woman's scream turned into a song.
And a question spoken in flame:
"Will you burn for them, or with them?"
"Time to walk toward what you lit," they say.
Scene V — Lan'Fei's Roar
She faces the wind — now blood-salted, storm-laced.
A beast beside her lowers its body in fear.
She places her hand on its skull and mutters an old rite.
The winds part for her voice.
"If fire must burn the sea to keep us alive, then let the ocean bleed."
The beasts rise.
She moves toward the Pavilion.
Scene VI — The Choice
The Pavilion stands at the eye of this spiral:
The Crown awakens hunger.
The Hollow gather teeth.
Tshepo watches from the old deep.
The First Flame waits in chains.
And Feng Xian? He walks the reef as storm light ignites the clouds, fire-dream still burning in his gaze.