He came at twilight.
Not on foot.
Not in silence.
But through the fire.
The old warehouse on the east ridge — Kael's command post — erupted in green flame just before dusk.
Not chemical.
Not System-made.
This was Hollow's fire — the kind that doesn't consume.
It unmakes.
We saw the smoke from the nursery.
Felt the network recoil as the signal from the Fire Clan's outpost went dark.
By the time I reached the ridge, the building was a skeleton of steel and ash.
And in the center —
a man standing.
Unburned.
Unbroken.
But not unchanged.
Kael.
His coat was gone.
His boots, charred.
His face streaked with soot and something darker — veins of ash beneath the skin, pulsing faintly, like embers in clay.
He didn't turn as I approached.
"They didn't burn me," he said.
"They tried.
Hollow's men.
His inner circle.
They called it purification."_
He lifted his hand.
The skin split slightly — not bleeding.
Releasing a wisp of gray smoke.
"But fire doesn't kill fire."_
I didn't move closer.
Because the network was afraid.
Not of him.
Of what he was.
"You're not just a fire-wielder anymore."
"No," he said.
"I'm what happens when you stand in the heart of destruction and refuse to fall."
He looked at me.
His eyes — once brown — now held a slow, deep glow, like coals buried in sand.
"Hollow didn't just attack me.
He tried to replace me.
To burn out the man and leave only the flame.
But I didn't let go."_
"Of what?"
"The memory," he said.
"Of the first time I saw a vine grow through concrete.
Of the child who held up a leaf like it was a miracle.
Of you, standing in the road, saying, *'You can't kill the root.'"_
A dry laugh.
"He didn't understand.
Fire remembers too."_
I studied him.
Not with suspicion.
With reckoning.
"The network fears you."
"It should," he said.
"I carry his fire.
Not just as power.
As infection.
Every time I use it, a little more of me turns to ash.
I can feel it — spreading.
Like your roots.
But in reverse."_
He held out his hand.
"I'm not here to join you.
I'm here to warn you.
Hollow's not just erasing the green.
He's building something.
In the old subway tunnels.
A machine.
Not metal.
Living.
Made from dead roots, fossilized bark, and the bones of the first Voices."_
My breath caught.
"He's trying to wear the Green Heart."
Kael nodded.
"And if he succeeds, he won't destroy the network.
He'll command it.
Turn every vine, every root, every chosen one — into a weapon."
He looked at his hand.
The ash-veins pulsed.
"I couldn't stop him alone.
But I can slow him.
Burn his machines.
Disrupt his signal.
If I don't burn out first."_
Silence.
Then, from the edge of the ruins, a single vine — thin, pale — crept forward.
Not toward me.
Toward him.
It touched his boot.
And recoiled — not in fear.
In recognition.
"He's not clean," Thistle murmured in my mind.
"But he's not hollow either."
I stepped forward.
"You don't have to do this alone."
"You're saying the garden will accept me?"
"No," I said.
"But it will use you.
Just like it uses fire in the wild — not to destroy.
To clear.
To make space for new growth."_
He almost smiled.
"So I'm not a guest.
I'm a tool."
"Yes," I said.
"And so am I."_
He looked at the ruins.
Then, with a breath, he clenched his fist.
Fire rose — not green, not wild — but controlled, contained in his palm, burning upward like a torch.
"Then let it be useful."
He turned to leave.
"I'll find the machine.
When I do, I'll send a signal.
Not words.
Flame."_
"And if the fire takes you?"
He paused.
"Then burn me too.
But make sure I fall on top of it."
He walked into the dark.
Not a savior.
Not a hero.
But a man who had walked through fire unburned —
and chosen to carry its weight.
And behind him, where his footprints touched the ash,
a single dandelion pushed through.
Not from seed.
From memory.