“Miss Hrok, Aphelia—what is this...?”

Disbelief crashed over Lilo like cold surf; her eyes rejected the vision before her.

Aphelia, once swaddled in bandages, slipped free of the stone carving. The “bandages” unraveled into endless ash, a gray snowfall that swallowed itself.

No charred horror waited beneath. In its place danced a Crimson Flame, quick as breath, alive like a heartbeat under skin.

As a bearer of red dragon blood, Lilo felt fire’s Aether the way scales feel wind. Yet this Crimson Flame veiled itself like a red moon behind clouds.

It felt kin-born to her fire, and still, it sat higher, like a mountain above a torch.

“Heh—heh—hahaha! The plan worked. She’s awake. You’ll see it for yourself, right now!”

Hrok knew that flame’s source; joy flooded her eyes like spring rain. She stepped forward without noticing she’d crossed the flame’s threshold.

The Crimson Flame didn’t burn her. It simply pressed her back, gentle as a tide-line, then flowed to Aphelia’s side again.

Shoved aside, Hrok fell to her knees, sobbing with joy and loss in one breath. Seeing that, Lilo knew no answers would come from her.

She didn’t dare move. One stir might draw the Flame’s strike, and the thrum in its depths carried the chill of death.

Aphelia hovered midair, only a wavering silhouette, like a soul flensed of flesh. Yet her aura surged like a storm at full crest.

“Aphelia, please—don’t let anything happen to you...”

Lilo’s fists tightened like iron rings. She stared at the figure swathed in Crimson Flame and whispered to the burning air.

Inside her sea of consciousness, Aphelia’s face flushed scarlet. Sweat beaded; her body trembled, coming apart like frost under sun.

Heat, sting, unspeakable agony ran her circuits like counterfeit blood. Each return to the heart threw a shock into her mind, a drumbeat to shatter thought.

More than once, flame leapt to her shoulders like a wolf to the throat. Her will forced it down, nail by nail, breath by breath.

The woman in the white dress had worsened it all; each gasp grew harsher. The disintegration quickened, yet Aphelia clung to a last thread.

She wrestled in the endless fire-sea, a lone skiff in red storm, refusing the pull to sink.

“Aphelia...”

Maybe a hallucination, maybe not. A gentle call drifted up from the flames like a reed flute over coals.

At a moment like this, she didn’t dare loosen her mind. She tried to ignore it. The voice came again, closer, like a footstep on embers.

“Who... who’s there?!”

“Aphelia... is it power you seek?”

The voice was calm, still water under a burning sky. The blaze didn’t touch it, and that startled her.

She didn’t dare open her eyes, even with the voice right before her. Heat licked her face; she feared flame would enter through her eyes like thieves through a window.

There was no malice in that voice. There was no kindness either, only a flat horizon.

“Aphelia, what you seek—does it end in power?”

The voice sounded again, now right in front of her. It breathed not at all. It moved not at all. It was there like a ghost drawn in a single line.

It had met no barrier from the World Will, the woman in white. Aphelia’s heart sank. Was this yet another snare?

She didn’t know that the woman in white was already ash, dissolved into the boundless blaze.

Pain seized her tongue and throat. She chose silence. If doom had come, her present state couldn’t wrestle it down anyway.

Better to ignore the voice and fight the invasion of flame, one pulse at a time.

“Are you... in pain?”

That question pierced her thought, as if the voice had read her heart.

“Hoo...”

She let out a slow breath like steam from a kettle, but still she didn’t answer. Unknowns are knives; she refused to grasp one now.

At least while she stayed clear-minded, the ring of flame around her held back. One word in the wrong moment could crack the dam.

“Are you... in pain?”

The voice cut in again, like a pebble into meditation’s still pond. Heat surged through the breach, and she screamed, fire gnawing at her heart.

It wasn’t past saving. She tried to steady breath and spirit, when a hand clamped her arm. The flat, hopeless question came again.

“Aphelia, are you... in pain?”

Some force nudged her will. Aphelia opened her eyes without meaning to.

She flinched, hands rising to guard. The expected skin-scorching burn never came.

The fire-sea lay outside her like a red ocean held by glass. The heat vanished in an instant, like wind snuffed by snow.

Before her stood a humanoid Crimson Flame. Its hands, made of fire, held her arm.

They didn’t sear. They felt soft, like human palms warmed by a hearth.

The crimson figure had no face, yet Aphelia felt its gaze on her like a child’s clear eyes under the sun.

“Aphelia, are you... in pain?”

Seeing her open her eyes, the crimson figure released her. It stood before her like a candle without shadow and asked again.

“I... who are you?”

It didn’t answer. It repeated the question like a wind-up doll, and Aphelia’s brow drew tight.

This crimson shape wasn’t human. Not an elemental either. Not pure Aether, nor Arcane Power. Its nature was a blank on her map.

The flames had fallen back around them, and she remembered the first whisper that rose when she shut her eyes.

At the world’s dawn, in the endless fire-sea, the first living being was born.

Was this crimson figure that first being? The thought rose, then she broke it like a stick.

Impossible. If it was the first, why this form? Ages lived, histories watched—why speak like a stuck bell?

This was the shape of unawakened mind, of an unopened bud.

“I... don’t hurt now.”

After thinking it through, she chose to follow its question and move with the current.

“Not... in pain?”

Doubt shimmered over the crimson flame. It reached again, gripped her arm, then let go almost before she felt it.

“No... Aphelia, you’re... in great pain. I can... feel it.”

The words cost it like lifting a mountain. It held her arm with stubborn gentleness and spoke with solemn care.

Her confusion deepened. Her pain had faded with the flames. Why cling so hard to this?

The next words overturned her easy answers.

“Your... heart is... in pain.”

“My heart... is in pain.”

She stared at the crimson figure, speech caught in her throat. That child-clear gaze had seen through everything.

She had thought it a machine’s echo. She realized, instead, she’d been the proud one.

“Aphelia... do you still... hurt?”

Seeing her sink inward, the crimson figure stepped close. A tiny flame bud blossomed at its fingertip, circling her like warm fireflies.

With that warmth, for an instant, the vast fire-sea around them blurred like mirage. Before she sensed it fully, it settled back to what it had been.

“No... thank you. It doesn’t hurt as much now. May I ask—who are you?”

The crimson figure hesitated, as if the question were a mountain without path.

“I... I don’t know... who I am.”