The night air was thick with secrets.
Elara moved silently through the lower corridors of the palace, each step echoing like a question down the cold stone halls. The torches along the walls flickered low, casting elongated shadows that swayed like spirits. She'd memorized the map from Jeon-Myeong's scroll—etched it into her mind, every turn, every gate, every forbidden door.
She reached the sealed entrance beneath the throne room. Massive double doors carved from obsidian and bone. No locks. No handles. Only ancient symbols glowing faintly, almost pulsing—like a heartbeat waiting to be matched.
Her fingers hovered over the stone, and the flower-shaped mark on her wrist began to glow.
She hesitated.
Then touched it.
A hum vibrated through the stone, low and mournful, like an old instrument being awakened after centuries of silence. The air shifted. Symbols rippled, as if the stone itself was breathing. Then—
click.
The doors groaned and opened inward, revealing a descending staircase swallowed in darkness.
Elara stepped inside.
⸻
The air grew colder with every step.
This was no ordinary chamber. The walls were etched with symbols she had only seen in Jeon-Myeong's writings—ancient script of the Sylara, curving lines that seemed to shimmer when she looked at them too long. Light came from nowhere. Or perhaps, from the markings themselves.
As she descended, her heartbeat slowed, as if her body was responding to something older than fear.
At the base of the stairs was a circular room, the ceiling arched like the inside of a flower bud. The floor was stone—but not dead. It pulsed faintly beneath her feet, like veins carrying memory. In the center, carved deep into the stone, was the sigil of Sylara: a flower wrapped in flame and vine.
She stepped onto it.
And heard her name.
"Elara…"
A voice. Whispered. Soft as breath, but unmistakable.
"Mother?" she whispered, turning in place. "Where are you?"
Silence.
Then the sigil beneath her lit up, and the room trembled gently. The walls around her shimmered, shifting like water, and in the patterns of the stone she saw something — a face.
Eyes like hers. Lips trembling. A voice, not spoken aloud but woven through the stone itself.
"Elara… You followed the call…"
She dropped to her knees.
"Is it you? Are you—alive?"
The voice did not answer immediately. Instead, images rose from the floor — not real, but formed from light and memory. Her mother, Han'Lia, standing in a garden of fire. The Cheonhwa blooming on her chest. A shadow behind her — the King. His hand reaching.
The image shimmered, then burst into petals of light.
"I live," the voice said. "But not as you remember. My soul was split, bound by his greed. Half lies in the Cheonhwa. Half lies… waiting."
"Waiting?" Elara's voice cracked. "For what?"
"For you. For the path to open. The Eastern Summit, child. The seal is breaking. He fears it. That is why he clings to the flower."
Elara's hands trembled. She remembered the way the Cheonhwa pulsed at her touch, the way it bled light, the King's face twisted in fear.
"I saw it," she whispered. "I felt you. In the light."
"You are my anchor," said the voice. "You carry what he could not steal. The last thread of Sylara."
The room darkened suddenly, the air tightening like a held breath. A warning.
"He watches now," the voice said. "He suspects. The flower awakens. You must move before it roots deeper. Go. Go to the summit."
"Elara!"
Another voice echoed from the staircase — louder, real.
It was Jae-Hwa.
She stood quickly, eyes wide. "How did you—?"
"I followed you," he said, stepping into the chamber. "You're not very quiet."
His eyes swept the chamber. When he saw the sigil of Sylara beneath her feet, he froze.
"This place… What is it?"
"A memory," she said. "A prison. A voice that still lives."
He stepped toward her, carefully. "You heard her. Your mother?"
Elara nodded. "She told me to go. To the Eastern Summit. Something is waiting there. Something he fears."
Jae-Hwa's face darkened. "My father…"
Elara looked at him. "You said he changed. When?"
Jae-Hwa didn't answer right away. He stared at the glowing floor, the petals of memory still fading.
"When I was a child," he finally said, voice low. "He used to laugh. Then he brought back the flower. And everything stopped. His eyes changed. He stopped aging. People whispered that he'd made a pact."
"He didn't," Elara whispered. "He stole a soul."
Jae-Hwa nodded slowly. "Then it's true."
They stood in silence, the air between them charged with unsaid things.
Finally, Elara spoke.
"Will you help me?"
Jae-Hwa looked at her—really looked. And then, quietly, he said, "I already am."
⸻
That night, beneath a silver moon, Elara prepared to leave.
She wrapped the scrolls tightly, hiding them in the folds of her clothes. The sigil on her wrist still glowed faintly — a guide, a tether.
She didn't know what waited at the Eastern Summit.
But she knew now — it was the path forward.
The path to her mother's soul.
The path to truth.
And as she slipped through the palace gates under cloak of darkness, one thought burned in her heart:
He stole the flower.
She would return the fire.