In Pyrrhion, the sun didn't rise, it just deepened.
Light streamed tenderly across Anna's home, tracing a slow-gold spill through the stone-smooth windows. Heat moved behind the walls as if holding a breath.
In Michael's room, the fire spirit drifted in a silent loop near the ceiling, flickering gently. On the night table sat a plate of half-eaten amber fruit.
Michael stirred beneath the covers but didn't get up. He didn't seem asleep either just still.
The door creaked open.
Anna intervened, silently but not stealthily. She was holding a small cup of morning-brewed stoneleaf tea, steam trailing behind her like a ribbon. She didn't knock.
She sat next to his bed, like someone who has done this before no questions asked, no favors asked. She didn't say his name. Set the cup down on the small ledge next to him and clasped her hands in her lap.
"You have dreamed again," she said gently.
Michael blinked once, his eyes unfocused. "…Yeah."
"Did you see him again?"
He nodded. "The version that allowed a city to burn."
She didn't flinch. "Did you speak?"
"No. Just watched."
Anna leaned back slightly more, allowing silence to cascade.
"You shouldn't have to be every version of yourself." "You just need to stop running away from them."
Michael turned toward her. She wasn't smiling herself, but her presence warmed up the room. Not because of the flame.
Because it was her.
"You're better at this than I am," he told me.
Anna tilted her head. "I've had more time to prepare."
She stood softly, brushing her robe as she walked to the door. Just before she left, she chimed in, "Kael said she was going to break down the door if you weren't out in ten minutes."
Michael groaned. "How early is it?"
Anna stopped and smiled back over her shoulder.
"Late enough to matter."
.....
The table was full.
Kael slumped with one leg over her chair arm, chewing without even a shred of elegance through fire grain bread. Arion bent over a pile of parchment, sketching idly the pieces of what he could still remember of his summoner sigils. Michael took a sip of the tea Anna had brewed for him, now cool enough not to burn.
"Do you think Guildmaster Orien's going to be friendly?" Kael asked.
"He'll be polite," Anna said, reconfiguring a strap on her sleeve. "He's always polite."
Kael raised an eyebrow. "You say that as if it were a threat."
Anna smiled faintly. "Only if you intend on being rude."
Michael looked back and forth, amused.
"What, exactly, did you do for him?"
Anna did not respond immediately. She just looped the final clasp on her shoulder wrap and said, "Helped him remember who he was. A long time ago."
Kael whistled. "That sounds important."
Anna's eyes softened. "It was."
Outside, the city shifted.
Rumors spread, like ash on the wind.
But a name had been heard again not loud, not public. Just whispered.
Eidara.
And as Anna's door closed behind them, moving toward the Guildmaster's terrace, the fire in Michael's chest beat—not with fear.
But in readiness.
...…
The Guild of the Flameborn sat at the curve of Vel'Kareth's pinnacle, ornately sculpted into the cliff face, tall glass bridges running down like arteries over streams of molten stone. Puffs of smoke spiraled up through vents in the stone floor, and summoner glyphs wiggled imperceptibly in the walls as if they were breathing.
Kael ushered them through the outer courtyard and nodded once at the armed guards standing flanking the guild door.
Arion appeared restless but firm. Michael tracked his own flame spirit, with its jittery alertness.
Then the doors opened and they went inside.
The inner chamber was long and circular, above it a shallow dome that reflected, in real-time flame, the sky. The paths along the edges were filled with dark and silent guild scribes, rune scrolls in hand, but every head turned as Anna passed through the focus of their collective gaze.
Not in fear. Not reverence.
Respect.
Like she was a person who simply loosened the knots just enough to remind them they were still human.
Even Guildmaster Orien rose to welcome her as she entered.
He was a broad-shouldered man, grizzled, with white at his temples and a jagged burn scar down one side of his neck. His robe was faintly shimmering with wardlight, and when he spoke, he should've had.
"Anna," he said. "It's been too long."
She inclined her head. "I figured it best to arrive when called for."
"You were never called," Orien said. "You were requested. There's a difference."
Michael looked at Kael. Kael just smirked.
Inside the Guildmaster's Hall
Once seated, with others nearby, Orien spread a small scroll upon the center table. His fingers brushed a rune, and the parchment unfurled, faintly glowing in fiery calligraphy.
"These," he said, "have been found elsewhere in Pyrrhion. Small sigils. Not quite Thread glyphs. Not summoner marks. But… close."
He shifted the scroll into alignment slightly. "We've found them carved into stone, abandoned in shattered ritual sites, and scratched into the walls of flameforged caves."
Arion leaned forward. "Similar to the ones at the Cracked Span."
Orien nodded. "Exactly."
He looked at Anna. "Some of my sources those in other Realms are saying the same. Silent spirit fields. Faded memory pools. Lonely summoner paths going dark.
Michael had a cold feeling in his spine. "What you're saying is, this isn't just here.
"No," Orien said. "Whatever this isit goes thread deep. It's building through the Cycle."
Kael crossed her arms. "Any names?"
Orien hesitated. "Only one. And even then it's sort of half-whispers."
Michael already knew. He didn't speak it. Neither did Anna.
Orien tapped the scroll shut.
"I'm not asking you to fight," he said, glancing at each of them. "And what I am saying to you is: if you've seen something anything it may already be more connected than it seems to you."
Later Kael's Training Grounds
"The first rule of not dying," Kael said as he tossed Michael a practice stave, "is knowing when to stop thinking and start moving."
Michael caught it, clumsily.
Arion was standing nearby, his arms half-raised, uncertain of his stance as well.
Kael was in between them, drawing a thin blade of ember chalk from her belt and tracing a clean arc across the floor.
"Stay in this line. Use your flame to sense each other's pressure as well as their place. Fire doesn't warn. It reacts."
The training began.
Sweat. Flame. Awkward movement becoming rhythm slowly.
And Anna sat outside the steps and was watching.
Not judging.
Just present.