The forest was quiet that night.


No fire flickered in celebration. No drums echoed through the trees. The Circle gathered not to dance—but to decide.


Because the flame had grown too wide to hold.


Children in far villages now bore sigils they’d never been taught. Memoryroot bloomed in desert regions it had never touched. Entire clans with lost names began waking to fire that hummed their ancestors’ grief.


And through it all, one word whispered in every ember:


“Nyah.”


Sungbo stood alone at the river’s edge, the place where she had first called the flame, first heard her name.


Ena’s voice echoed in her memory.


“You were never meant to rule the fire.

You were meant to set it free.”


At dawn, she called the Circle.


They stood in silence, waiting.


She raised her hand, rootlight curling around her fingers.


“This is no longer mine,” she said.


“The flame does not belong to any one name, one line, one house. It belongs to us all.”


She stepped into the center of the fire ring, barefoot.


Lit a single candle.


And whispered:


“Let the world remember—not me.

But the truth that chose me.”


The flame did not roar.


It blossomed.


Golden petals of heat and memory, spiraling upward like a tree made of stories. Every sigil in the Circle flared to life. Every name once silenced rang like music in the air.


Then the flame split—into thousands of smaller lights.


Each one flew into the sky.


North. South. East. West.


To villages. To cities. To hidden corners where names still slept in dust.


The flame was now everywhere.


Sungbo watched the last ember rise.


Then smiled.


Not because her story had ended.


But because it had become everyone else’s.


Far in the future, a girl named Nia’tari would open a sealed tower and whisper:


“We were once kept.”


And the flame, still glowing with Sungbo’s breath, would whisper back:


“And now… you are home.”