Chapter 35: Veil of Forgotten Flames

The heart's eye held Lin Wei suspended in its gaze, its pupil a vortex of dead stars and older truths. His fractures bled starlight, each drop a memory: Yuelin's laughter, the weight of the Moonlit Veil, Lin Mei's flames guttering to silence. The eye spoke without sound, its voice carving directly into his marrow.

Why do you fear the fire?

Lin Wei choked on the answer. Around him, the clansfolk burned—their bodies dissolving into ash that spiraled upward, feeding the heart's ascent. A child's scream echoed, cut short as her form scattered into embers.

Flashback:

Yuelin pressed a smoldering branch into his palm. "Fire isn't destruction," she said, his skin blistering. "It's a question. What will you become?"

The memory curdled as the eye's gaze deepened. You are the answer. The Patriarch's final spark.

Astralon fought through a storm of reborn Harvesters, their bodies now liquid light, their dirges twisted into war hymns. The corrupted shard in their grip pulsed with Yuelin's spark—a flicker of gold in the blackened glass.

"You're too late," hissed a Harvester, its form mirroring Astralon's scars. "The heart remembers everything."

Astralon slammed the shard into its chest. "So do I."

The Harvester dissolved, its light absorbed by the shard. Gold veins spread, cracking the corruption.

In the void, Lin Mei clawed through Echo-0's taunts, its voice a scalpel peeling back her resolve. "You wanted this," it crooned, wearing her brother's face. "To be more than a shadow. Now you're nothing at all."

Her void-flames surged, a desperate roar. "I'm his shadow!"

Flashback Triggered by Defiance:

Lin Wei, age eight, standing between her and a clan elder's wrath. "She didn't mean to burn the fields," he lied, trembling. "It was an accident."

The memory sharpened her flames. Echo-0's facade cracked.

The heart's eye narrowed, its judgment a blade. You cling to lies. The Patriarch's blood is not your chain—it is your key.

Lin Wei's fractures ignited, pain rewriting his bones. "What key?"

To open me.

The system's remnants screeched:

[Directive Override: Heart Synchronization.]

[Warning: Host Mortality Imminent.]

He laughed, bloody and raw. "You want me to let you in?"

To let you out.

Astralon reached the heart's nexus, the shard now half-golden. Yuelin's voice whispered from it: "The Veil was never yours. It was hers."

Above, Lin Mei's void-flames tore through Echo-0's lies, her brother's borrowed face melting to bone. "I'm done with your ghosts!" she screamed, seizing the skeleton's spine.

The clansfolk's ash swirled faster, the heart's rhythm a drumroll.

Lin Wei's fractures split wide. Instead of starlight, fire poured out—Yuelin's fire, older than the clan. The heart's eye widened, its infinite gaze faltering.

Astralon plunged the shard into the nexus. Gold exploded, but the heart shrieked, not in pain—in recognition.

Lin Mei snapped Echo-0's spine. The void shattered.

And the Patriarch's ghost materialized in the flesh, his hand closing around Lin Wei's throat.

"Thank you," he breathed. "For waking me."