"The fire that guards may also consume. All depends on who holds the bellows."
— Fragment from the Red Ash Codex, Year 115 of the War Era
Morning arrived with ill omens.
The sun bled through the mist over Emberheart's mountain flanks like a wound refusing to close. Disciples moved sluggishly through their routines—some pausing to catch their breath mid-form, others faltering during qi rotation.
The first collapse was barely noticed.
Outer disciple Lin Qian fell during fire-breath technique. The senior overseeing the drill thought it exhaustion, until the boy began coughing smoke—not fire, but thick black soot, his meridians veined with ash.
Elder Duan's diagnosis was vague: "Qi corrosion. Possibly backlash from improper cultivation."
But Shen Li knew better.
When the second collapse occurred—Senior Healer Qiu vomiting blood during a quiet meditation—Shen Li issued the first emergency order since his father's death:
"Quarantine the leyline basin. Restrict access to all inner flame pools. Mark anyone who has drawn from the root in the last month."
The elders looked uneasy.
Some argued.
One refused—until Shen Li ignited the fire crest across his palm and said, with iron finality:
"I am not requesting consent."
Silence.
The council bowed.
But suspicion stirred in their eyes.
Not at the corruption.
At him.
Two nights later, the old forge groaned open under Shen Li's touch.
The entrance had been welded shut after the war. Official records called it "condemned."
Yet someone had reopened it.
Dust lay thick on the walls, but a fresh trail of soot ran across the floor.
Lan Xueyi followed him in, silent, hand resting on the hilt of her spiritblade. The scent of scorched iron and damp fireroot hung in the air.
"Why bring me?" she asked finally. "Why now?"
"Because your sect's watching," he replied. "And you're too principled to lie to yourself."
She didn't argue.
They reached the central furnace.
It was still warm.
Shen Li crouched and traced his fingers across the hearth. There, beneath the soot, he revealed a sigil carved into the forge's base.
It pulsed faintly—not with fire, but with something darker. Hungrier.
Lan Xueyi knelt beside him, breath catching as she examined it.
"This is exile work," she said. "It anchors the user to the leyline—feeds through the sect's root system. It shouldn't exist. This kind of branding... it consumes loyalty as fuel."
He said nothing.
She looked up at him sharply.
"You've seen it before."
Shen Li exhaled, eyes narrowing. "In my father's old scrolls. He never said the name. Only... the traitor who learned to eat flame."
They searched for over an hour. Charred talismans. Rusted blood spikes. And finally, hidden beneath the hearth's stone plate, a fragment of a fire-seal—half-broken, scorched on the edges.
It bore the seal of the former Sect Lord.
Shen Li's father.
Lan Xueyi ran a finger along the edge, eyes hardening.
"He knew. He was down here. And he chose not to destroy this place."
Shen Li stared at the seal. "He was afraid of something worse getting out."
Then, from beneath the furnace, a sliver of scroll fluttered loose—miraculously preserved in a sealed box of red jade.
On it, in bold fire script, just one name:
Yi Wuren.
Lan Xueyi's lips parted. "That's impossible."
Shen Li looked up slowly. "You know the name."
"He was burned in the Ash Trials. Declared dead forty years ago."
"He was also one of the first inner flame elders. One of my father's own disciples."
They exchanged a long, loaded look.
Then Lan Xueyi spoke softly:
"If he lives, and he planted an anchor here... he's not just hiding. He's waiting."
That night, they stood beneath the Flame Willow—its ancient branches twisting above the outer courtyard like a guardian in mourning.
"Why didn't your father destroy this place?" Lan Xueyi asked.
"Because he wasn't sure the sect would survive what was buried with it."
"You mean Yi Wuren?"
Shen Li hesitated.
Then: "No. I think Yi Wuren was just part of it. A hand. The root might be deeper."
Lan Xueyi said nothing for a while.
Then she stepped forward and pressed a talisman into his hand—snow-petaled, etched in her sect's frost script.
"Three days," she said. "That's how long I can delay my report."
He looked at her.
"And after that?"
She didn't blink.
"After that, I decide if you're worth protecting—or purging."
Her words were sharp.
But her fingers brushed his before letting go.
And in that touch, there was hesitation