Location: A wind-torn ledge near the edge of the Jade Serpent Isles, where the sea meets scorched cliff. Night shivers. A fire flickers beneath a sky bruised with storm light.
Feng Xian sits alone, the Crown-scar along his spine glowing faintly — not with heat, but with memory. The ember mark pulses erratically, like a heartbeat beneath water.
👁️ Dream fire Vision Begins
He is pulled inward — not asleep, not awake — into the Fire That Remembers. And it speaks not in words, but smoke and ash.
A pyramid split open by hollow laughter.
Flames turning backwards.
Chains made of sunlight, snapped and coiling into the earth.
A face like his — but wrong — staring back from within a molten mirror.
Yur'Zhul's rage bleeds across the veil, distant but reaching.
The sun fire essence tries to speak… but something else pulls it down.
A whisper slides into his bones:
"What you bear… hungers."
"Another seeks to eat the flame. To hollow the light. To burn without end."
"You must not let them forge the Ash Crown."
Feng Xian awakes with smoke on his breath.
🎴 Immediate Aftermath
Lan'Fei, nearby, senses the shift in him.
Luo Fen steps from the brush, uneasy.
Lan'Fei: "You saw it too, didn't you? A pyramid of ash. A chain of fire."
Luo Fen: "The Jade doesn't dream of deserts… unless something drags the desert to us."
The sea ripples unnaturally. A faint scent of scorched spices rides the wind.
Feng Xian (quiet): "They are burning something sacred. Something that was never theirs."
He grips the edge of the ledge.
The Crown-mark flickers again — this time, not alone.
It now mirrors a second fire, one not born of his own will.