The first light of dawn touched Crimson Willow Sect with a ghostly gold hue. Mist curled across the training grounds like breath from the earth itself, veiling the world in a dreamscape of silence and secrets. But Aryan was already awake.
He hadn't slept.
His thoughts had circled endlessly, caught between the whisper of her name in the rift and the haunting silhouette that vanished like smoke. It wasn't a trick of his cultivation. He knew illusions. This was something deeper. Older. Alive.
Was it truly Lirael? Or something that remembered her as he did?
He stepped into the central garden where the great crimson willow stretched above the courtyard. The morning dew glistened on its leaves, each drop catching the faintest flicker of flame that lived within him.
Beneath the tree, a single blossom drifted downward.
Aryan caught it without thinking. The moment his fingers closed around it, his Flame Seed reacted—thrumming once, then falling eerily still.
His gaze snapped to the blossom.
It was not a willow flower.
It was lotus.
Silver-edged, veined with blue moonlight.
Moonveil Lotus.
His heart stopped. That flower… It only bloomed under one condition—when the Moonveil path awakened. And the only one who had ever walked that path… was her.
A sudden rustle behind him. Aryan turned sharply, flame surging silently beneath his skin.
A figure stood at the edge of the mist. Not a disciple. Not a master.
A girl. Barefoot. Silent.
Her hair fell around her like night, her robes patterned with faint sigils of moonlight. And in her hands, she held something wrapped in pale silk.
Their eyes met.
Aryan didn't speak. He didn't have to.
She stepped forward slowly, carefully, as though approaching something sacred—or something broken.
"You… I saw you in the dream," she said softly, voice like wind against water. "But I don't know your name. Only that… I found you here."
Aryan's throat tightened. He wanted to demand answers, to ask her who she was, what she remembered. But part of him was afraid.
Afraid that this wasn't her.
Afraid that it was.
"You felt it too, didn't you?" she whispered, holding out the silk bundle.
Aryan took it, hands steady though his heart wasn't. He unwrapped it.
Inside was a shard of crystal—dull, cracked, but laced with faint blue flame. The same essence that once danced in Lirael's hands. He knew it.
His voice was low. Controlled. "Where did you find this?"
"In a dream," she said. "Beneath a dead tree made of ash and stars. And when I woke up, it was beside me."
Aryan stepped back, the crystal burning against his palm.
She had brought something back from a dream realm.
Or perhaps…
From a past life.
---
Far beneath them, sealed under a forgotten vault, the rift trembled again. The name carved into its stone—Lirael—glowed once, then split, revealing a new glyph forming beside it.
A.
The seal was weakening.
But not from force.
From memory.
---
Aryan stood under the willow tree long after the girl left. She hadn't given her name. Hadn't asked for his.
But she had looked at him the same way Lirael once did—like she already knew the fire inside him.
The Flame Seed inside his core pulsed again, this time in rhythm with his heartbeat.
Alive.
Awake.
And yearning.
The past wasn't done with him.
And neither was she.
---
Author's Note — by R.E. Solcrest
The Moonveil has returned. Or has it always been waiting? Aryan's flame burns with memory, but memories… twist. Will he find her a
gain, or only shadows wearing her face? Keep reading, dear reader—the embers remember more than we think.