The air in the alchemist's tower always smelled like burnt sage, old ink, and secrets too ancient to name. Elara stood in the doorway, her back still sore from Rin'Hwa's cruel punishment, but her resolve sharper than ever. The bruises on her skin had become a kind of armor, each one whispering: You survived.
Master Jeon-Myeong sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, surrounded by scrolls, glass bottles filled with luminous dust, and a cage of glowing moths. He didn't look up when she entered.
"I felt the flame in you yesterday," he said calmly. "The palace did too."
Elara closed the heavy door behind her. "You said you had something to show me."
He nodded and finally turned toward her. His eyes were clouded with age, but behind them, something burned—like a man who had watched empires fall and still kept notes.
"You've seen pieces," he murmured, rising to his feet. "Visions. Dreams. The woman who calls you daughter."
"She is my mother."
Jeon-Myeong studied her face. "Then it is time you remember not just her voice... but her pain."
From beneath his sleeve, he drew a vial. It shimmered with soft lavender light. Tiny particles swirled inside it like falling petals.
"What is that?" Elara asked.
"Distilled memory. Not mine. Not yours. But hers," he said, offering it to her. "The last moment she was whole."
Elara took the vial. It was warm. Alive.
Jeon-Myeong gestured toward the center of the room, where a small bowl rested in a ring of chalk runes. "Drop it there. Then touch the water. Let it in."
She obeyed. The vial emptied in a single breath of color, dissolving into the bowl like ink. The liquid turned violet, then deep indigo, then black.
Her fingers trembled as she reached out and touched the surface.
The world fell away.
⸻
She was no longer Elara.
She was Han'Lia.
And it was the night everything ended.
The scent of lilacs filled the air. Silk brushed her ankles as she walked barefoot through the Moon Garden, where white flowers glowed under the twilight sky. Her heart was beating too fast. The child inside her stirred—restless, sensing danger.
Then he appeared.
King Hwan-Jo.
Not the cold, distant figure Elara had seen in the throne room. Not yet. He was younger here, but his beauty was as haunting. Dark hair. Pale skin. Eyes like winter glass.
And around Han'Lia's neck—glowed the flower.
The Cheonhwa.
It pulsed softly, golden and alive, as if growing from her very soul.
"I warned you," Hwan-Jo said. "To keep your distance from the human realm. From their children. From weakness."
"This child is not weakness," Han'Lia replied, her voice steady. "She is a bridge. She is hope."
Hwan-Jo stepped closer. "No, she is a threat. Just as you are now."
"You loved me once," Han'Lia whispered.
"I desired you," he corrected. "I desired the Cheonhwa in your heart. And now I will take it."
Han'Lia's eyes widened. "No…"
He reached out.
And tore the flower from her throat.
Not gently. Not with kindness. The petals screamed.
Elara felt the pain—not as an observer, but as the one whose soul was being shredded.
Han'Lia gasped, collapsing to her knees, clutching her chest. The child in her womb kicked, wild and afraid. Magic bled from her, golden and raw, flooding the garden with light and sorrow.
Hwan-Jo stood above her, the Cheonhwa in his hand, now dim and unnatural in his grip.
"You chose them over us," he said coldly. "And now you will sleep… until even the stars forget your name."
⸻
Elara jolted back.
She was on the floor of the alchemist's tower, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her hands trembled as they pressed against her chest, as if the flower had been ripped from her own throat.
Jeon-Myeong was kneeling beside her, silent.
"She didn't give it," Elara said hoarsely. "He stole it."
The old man nodded. "And in doing so, he corrupted it. The Cheonhwa is not meant to be wielded by violence. It was born from love."
Elara sat upright, fury and grief fighting for space in her heart. "Is that why it reacts to me? Why it glows when I'm near?"
"Because it remembers," Jeon-Myeong whispered. "It knows its true home."
She rose slowly, her eyes blazing. "I will take it back. For her. For me."
"Careful," he warned. "The Cheonhwa cannot be taken. It must return willingly. And it has been fed by darkness for too long. It no longer knows what it is."
Elara's fists clenched. "Then I will remind it."
Jeon-Myeong gave her a small scroll. "Then start with this. It's the Song of the Living Flame—the words that once bound the Cheonhwa to the Sylara bloodline. If you can awaken its memory... perhaps it will choose you."
Elara unrolled the scroll. The script shimmered in gold, ancient and delicate. She couldn't read the words—not yet. But her heart recognized their rhythm.
A promise.
A calling.
"I will make it remember," she said, voice steady.
As she turned to leave, Jeon-Myeong added, "Elara… there is more."
She paused.
"There is a reason you were born on the other side. A reason your mother sent you away before the flower was taken."
"What reason?"
He looked at her, grief shadowing his features. "Because you are the last seed."
Elara stared at him. "What does that mean?"
"The Cheonhwa blooms once every age. But the seed—its true heir—must awaken in exile. Protected by ignorance. Fed by both worlds."
"And now?"
He stepped back into the shadows. "Now, you bloom."