The world was quieter now.


Not peaceful—just listening.


Since Romi shattered the legacy of the bloodline order, the Five Provinces had entered a strange stillness. Fires no longer flickered for tradition—they waited for truth. Names once whispered in rebellion were now etched in school walls, marketplace banners, and temple steps.


But fire, once unleashed, never truly rests.


And in the ashes of Ire’s rebirth, something older had begun to stir.


Romi stood atop the flamewall ruins in the city of Udaye, watching the horizon burn with morning rootlight. Her sigils, once hidden beneath cloth, now glowed openly across her arms like moving script.


Kanan approached, eyes tired from another night of restless patrols.


“No riots. No firewalkers,” he said. “But the embers are acting strange again.”


Romi nodded. “They’re sensing something.”


Toma joined them from the lower level of the outpost, holding a scroll sealed in rootwax.


“We got word from the East. A child in the Ember Wastes lit a tower flame using only her voice.”


Romi turned sharply. “No bloodline? No artifact?”


Toma shook his head. “No House trace at all.”


Romi narrowed her eyes.


This wasn’t just legacy anymore.


This was evolution.


The fire wasn’t responding to inheritance.


It was responding to possibility.


Later, in the Circle Hall, Romi unrolled an old map of pre-House territories. There, drawn in ink that no one else could see until now, was a word that hadn’t surfaced in centuries:


EMBERLINES


She traced the letters slowly, whispering:


“Not blood-born…

not ash-born…

but flame made.”


And far to the east, where no flame had burned for generations, a girl no older than five lit a signal fire that spelled Romi’s name into the clouds.


The world had changed.


And the fire was no longer waiting.


It was choosing.