Elder Kaiyuan's Plot
"Control the flame, or die in its smoke."
— Sect Proverb, often recited by Kaiyuan himself
Elder Kaiyuan walked the outer ring of the Emberheart Archive, where no disciples dared linger after curfew.
The walls here whispered.
Old flames lived in the ink of forbidden scrolls, and ash gathered on tomes that had not been touched since the days of sect war.
He paused at a jade table, lit only by the soft flicker of spiritfire. A robed figure waited—face half-covered by a veil of ink-thread.
"Speak," Kaiyuan said without sitting.
The figure bowed low. "The heir has broken the seal on the Hidden Forge."
Kaiyuan's fingers curled slightly on the table.
"Elder Yun accompanied him?" he asked.
"Yes. And the envoy from Frostveil."
Kaiyuan narrowed his eyes. "Lan Xueyi…"
He turned, pacing once in silence.
Then: "Have the outer council been notified?"
"Not yet. We waited for your command."
"Good," he said. "That means I get to decide how this story is told."
He moved to a sealed cabinet, unlocked it with a flame-marked sigil, and retrieved a scroll wrapped in blood-colored thread.
He laid it on the table.
"This," he said, "is a petition for sectal review of leadership—grounds of spiritual instability and reckless tampering with sealed sacred grounds."
The veiled figure looked up sharply. "You would charge him so soon?"
"I would not charge him," Kaiyuan said softly. "I would offer him a test. One he cannot pass. One that shows the disciples, the elders, and the other sects that the fire in his blood burns too hot to rule."
He leaned in slightly, voice cold.
"If Shen Li has truly unsealed Yi Wuren, then he has violated his oath as heir. He has tampered with sacred flame. He has consorted with a traitor. That is enough."
The figure hesitated. "And if the Flamekeeper sides with him?"
Kaiyuan smiled faintly. "Then Yun burns with him."
He stood tall, the firelight catching the edge of his sleeve sigil: the fox-tail flame. A symbol of strategy. Of poison cloaked in heat.
"Call the outer elders. Leak word of the heir's descent. Make sure every senior disciple whispers of Wuren's release by sunrise."
He turned his back to the veiled figure.
"And when Shen Li returns," he said, "the trial will already have begun."