Chapter Ten
Amira couldn't sleep.
The revelation had struck like lightning through her bones. The villagers moved quietly around the dying embers of the day, but Amira sat alone beneath the Lantern Tree, the seed still glowing faintly where it had been planted. It no longer pulsed with flame—it pulsed with recognition.
She whispered again, "It's me," but this time the words felt heavier, older—like a name remembered by the land itself.
At dawn, she walked to Nnenna's hut.
The elder was already waiting outside, pouring crushed kola into the circle of stones that formed the ancestral hearth.
"I was born beneath a sky without stars," Amira said.
Nnenna didn't look up. "You were not born, child. You were given."
Amira blinked. "What do you mean?"
Nnenna set the gourd aside. "When your mother found you on the riverbank, you were wrapped in mooncloth. The kind used only by the ancient guardians to carry relics of the Otherworld."
Amira remembered the tattered fabric, hidden for years in a wooden box her mother had left her. The strange shimmering threads that never aged. The symbol stitched on the corner—a spiral over a flame.
"I thought it was just a story," Amira whispered. "A way to explain why I never looked like anyone else."
Nnenna finally met her gaze. "You are a child of two realms. Fire and silence. Memory and void. And now the flame has chosen you."
That night, the village held a quiet vigil. No songs, no drums—only the rustling of leaves and the sighs of old spirits walking unseen.
Amira sat at the center, surrounded by the children who had come from the mist. Taru held her hand tightly.
The seed beside her glowed brighter than ever, rising slightly from the soil.
And then—it opened.
Not into roots. Not into a tree.
But into a mirror of living flame.
Each person who looked into it saw something different—someone they had lost, a version of themselves not yet born, or a moment they had tried to forget.
When Amira looked into it…
…she saw herself as a girl again, standing in the forest at dusk.
A figure stepped out of the trees toward her—tall, cloaked, its face hidden.
The figure knelt and whispered into her younger self's ear:
"When the stars vanish, become the light yourself."
Suddenly, Amira awoke—not from sleep, but from something deeper.
A remembering.
A summoning.
She rose and walked to the edge of the forest.
And there, waiting in the mist, was the man without a name—the one who had first come speaking of the tree that sings.
He bowed his head. "You're ready."
Amira's voice was steady. "Ready for what?"
He looked up, and this time, his face was no longer uncertain.
It was calm.
And familiar.
"You are the Flamekeeper," he said. "And they are coming."
She turned to see the horizon burning—not with fire, but with footsteps.
Dozens… hundreds… thousands… walking from the borders of silence toward the village.
The forgotten.
The cursed.
The seekers.
All drawn to the one who was born beneath a sky without stars.