> Location: Northern Fringe, hours beyond Thimora
Thread Stability: In flux
Echo Sensitivity: Accelerated (Cause Unknown)
The wind tugged strangely at Jiang Han's cloak as he stood at the edge of a sunless grove. Dagan Ke was resting nearby, fire-thread anchors wrapped around him, his sleep watched by Tian Xue.
But Jiang barely noticed.
Because something inside him had begun to burn again—
Not hotter.
Not brighter.
But older.
---
The First Echo
It started as a flicker behind his eyes.
Not a thought.
Not a dream.
A memory.
One not his.
> A cracked battlefield, skies smeared red.
A man—tall, flame-torn—kneeling beside a fallen girl.
"The Sovereigns don't understand," he whispered.
"Flame isn't order. It's grief."
Jiang staggered. He clutched his head—but there was no pain. Only recognition.
He'd never seen this moment.
But it was in him.
---
Tian Xue Notices
She rushed to his side, alarmed.
"Jiang? Talk to me."
He looked up. His eyes burned—not with heat, but with swirling glyph patterns.
Echofang was vibrating at his hip.
"I saw… someone," he murmured. "A memory. But it wasn't mine. And it wasn't Long Chen's, either."
"Then whose?"
"I don't know."
But deep down, he did.
It was flame itself. Not a person. Not a legacy.
The collective sorrow and will of all who had burned and resisted and died before him.
> The unwritten flame.
---
The Flame's Request
That night, as the stars shifted above the distant horizon, Jiang sat alone beside a small, carefully contained fire.
He stared into the flame and let it rise.
Not controlled.
Not shaped.
Just felt.
And it answered.
Images danced—hundreds, thousands. He couldn't hold them all. A boy kneeling with a broken glyph. A woman singing while her flame burned out. A spirit beast sacrificing itself to shield a girl's soulthread.
So many.
Too many.
But one stood clear.
> A place.
A city made entirely of soundstone and threadlight.
A temple.
No name.
Just a glyph:
> Veyra.
---
Awakening Flameform
As the vision ended, Echofang pulsed.
And his flame changed.
No longer merely Chaos-threaded.
Now streaked with something more rare.
More ancient.
He held out his hand—and the flame that rose was translucent, rippling in tune with sound and memory.
Tian Xue whispered, "That's not Chaos. That's… Echofire."
Jiang turned toward her, his voice steady.
"It remembers before order."
"And now… it's remembering through me."
---
Final Scene – Back at Emberveil
Xia Zhi awoke from a trance beneath the Monolith.
She turned sharply toward the east, her heart racing.
Suyin appeared at her side.
"What is it?"
Xia Zhi didn't answer right away.
Then she whispered:
> "Jiang's flame just remembered something the Sovereigns tried to erase three eras ago."
> "He's not catching up to history anymore."
> "He's becoming it."