Some fires are born to warm.
Some, to devour.
But the first? The first was never meant for mortals.
Scene I — Beneath the Pavilion: Ember path
The Emissary walks ahead, barefoot over cooled obsidian veins that once flowed like magma. The walls of the Ember path hum faintly — bloodstones embedded in basalt, each flickering with ancient flame-script.
"Where does this path lead?" he asks.
"To where the Pavilion's founders swore never to tread again," the Emissary murmurs.
"To the Chamber of the First Flame."
"I saw it in a dream," Feng Xian says.
"But it bled."
"It always does."
As they descend, heat begins to reverse — not warmth, but the memory of heat, drained and hollowed, leaving frost-sweat and soul-chill in its wake.
In the distance, a sound like chanting through ash.
Scene II — The Hollow's Response: The Dread Ritual
Far across the trench, within the marrow-fortress known as Szevrak's Maw, the High Hollow Priest anoints the Devouring Hand with black ichor.
The ritual is complete.
"The Fire-Bearer approaches the First Light."
"You will consume what he sees."
"And if he becomes the flame…"
"Then you will become the extinguisher."
The Devouring Hand does not speak — it weeps blood through bandaged eyes, its senses honed to burning auras.
It has slain two fire blooded clans already.
Now it moves.
Scene III — Tshepo's Whispered Memory
Far below, Tshepo curls in coral-dark. Its body is part serpent, part mountain, scaled in tectonic plates and crowned with spiraling horns of dusk-crystal.
"He walks the Flame path."
A memory stirs in Tshepo — not of his own, but from one of the Seven Flame bearers he once devoured in the age of Blood-Fire.
"The boy must not break the seal."
Beneath Tshepo, a second eye opens — one not its own.
A slumbering Star brand Entity, wounded in a war that predates flame, begins to pulse.
"If he frees it," Tshepo murmurs,
"Then I will have to rise."
And the world is not ready.
Scene IV — Lan'Fei's Flight
A draconic beast beneath her shudders as storm-bands twist across the Isles. Her bond has grown stronger since the Crown's flare — she feels Feng Xian's soul as a beacon and a warning.
She sees visions in sleep:
A boy made of fire.
A serpent woven from moonlight.
A crown crumbling in black flame.
And her name whispered from ash:
"Lan'Fei… Keeper of the Ash-Wing."
Her heart burns. She knows what she must do.
She turns the beast toward the Pavilion — the sky boiling with a storm that is not just weather.
Scene V — The First Flame
Feng Xian and the Emissary reach the heart of the chamber. There is no fire — only a mirror of obsidian in the floor.
"Where is the Flame?"
The Emissary kneels, scarred fingers brushing the glass.
"You are the flame."
Suddenly — a ripple.
And the mirror opens like an eye — black-gold fire surging up in serpentine arcs, forming a circle around Feng Xian.
He sees:
The first Flame bearers screaming under the sky.
A Crown born of sacrifice.
A serpent woven from flame and void, whispering:
"You will burn what you love, or be burned for it."
"Choose."
Scene VI — All Paths Converge
The Devouring Hand arrives at the reef's edge, drawn by fire.
Lan'Fei enters the Pavilion's outer ward, beasts growling.
Tshepo coils tighter, dread rising.
The Star Brand Entity stirs below.
And Feng Xian… burns.
The Crown awakens.
The Flame That Waits speaks.
The war has begun.