The morning was pale, fog-draped.
No wind. No sound.
The girl who had asked for nothing rose from her place at the edge of the circle.
She didn't bow.
She didn't explain.
She simply turned to go.
No one moved to stop her.
She wasn't leaving in silence—
She was taking it with her.
But then it happened.
Something drifted behind her heel.
Faint.
Warm.
Weightless.
At first, it looked like a sliver of mist.
But Tenji saw it clearly.
"That's flame," he whispered.
"But it's not burning."
The sparkless boy watched, still seated.
"It's not following her to teach her."
"It's following her because she didn't ask it to."
One by one, the others noticed:
The Seventh Flame pulsed once, then slowly tilted toward her path.
A strand of Renn's self-named spark detached and floated behind her—still alive, but no longer hers.
Even the unshaped warmth at the center of the circle shimmered as she passed, as if nodding without sound.
She didn't stop walking.
But her lips moved, barely a whisper:
"You may come if you wish."
"But I will not carry you."
And still—
The flame followed.
Not bound.
Not summoned.
Just… accompanying.
Across the soulstream, archivists panicked.
"A flame has detached."
"It's leaving the circle."
"No mark. No anchor. No path."
"It's… it's walking behind someone with no cultivation signature at all!"
In the Soul Flame School, Wei Lin said softly:
"We've spent generations trying to light flame that obeys."
"She just let it choose."
And in the ruins below, the Fire That Waits whispered:
"Now it has learned what I waited to see."
"That flame may not need to serve…"
"…to still love being near someone."
The girl didn't turn around.
But wherever she walked next—
A flame would follow.
Not because she was special.
But because she never asked it to.