Word traveled faster than light.


Across coasts and caves, the story of a girl who walked into cursed fire and returned with the river’s own debt spread like smoke.


Some called her God-Touched.

Others, Firemother.

Most whispered only one thing:


“She didn’t inherit the flame.

She became it.”


Soon, emissaries arrived.


Not kings. Not elders. Not House heirs.


But children—marked, strange, dream-haunted.


They came from broken bloodlines, from clans who had hidden their own flame for generations. Many had never spoken their true names aloud. Some didn’t know them at all.


One child, no older than six, simply pointed at Sungbo and said:


“The flame showed me where you’d be.”


Ena looked out at the gathering.


“They don’t want to learn flamecraft.”


“No,” Sungbo said. “They want to learn truth.”


And so she gave it to them.


Not rules.

Not ranks.

Not legacy.


She taught them to call fire without fear.

To use it for story, for protection, for healing.

To weave it with root magic, river stone, and memory.


They became the first Circle of the Unclaimed.


But not everyone approved.


From the east came a rider wearing a cloak of scorched ivory—his eyes hollow, his voice like rusted wind.


“You desecrate sacred flame,” he said. “You teach the unworthy.”


Sungbo stepped forward.


“I teach those the Houses never named.”


“They were not meant to be named.”


Sungbo held her hand out.


A flicker of rootlight twisted in the air.


“Then I will name them myself.”


That night, her dreams were deeper than ever.


She stood before a wall of bloodstone etched with names—not written, but carved by fire.


Her own name glowed at the center:


Sungbo Nyah.


And beneath it, a phrase appeared:


“She who made flame remember.”


The next morning, Ena was gone.


No note. No tracks.


Only a blackened root where her bed once lay, pulsing softly.


Sungbo understood.


It was time for her to lead alone.