The Pale Girl And The Dying Sky

The Tomb of Ash drifted in a void realm, far beyond the maps of men or gods. Three dying suns floated above like silent witnesses, and the entire world seemed to hang in their withering glow. Lin Xue stood at the threshold of a forgotten gate—one carved not with scripture, but with memories pressed into stone.

The wind here was not wind at all.It carried names, laughter, and regret.

With every step she took forward, she heard echoes of herself—not the person she was now, but the ones she might have been. A healer. A mother. A tyrant. A martyr. Each footfall passed over bones fossilized into the path. Names were etched into them, but they blurred the moment she looked directly.

Ahead loomed a wall of chained arms—fleshless, writhing, bound in silence. They blocked her path.

She raised the Remembrance Flame.

The chains screamed. Not from pain—but from recognition.

As the flame brushed them, they retracted, slithering back into the shadows like memories unwilling to be faced. A dark corridor opened before her, deep and narrow.

The interior of the tomb disoriented the mind.Walls shifted when she wasn't looking.Mirrors whispered, lining the corridor—not with reflections, but with truths half-remembered.

Visions flickered:

Yan Zhuo—teaching a class of orphans.Yan Zhuo—defending a crumbling palace.Yan Zhuo—whispering into the ear of a woman in mourning robes.

Her.

No—Yue Lian.

And yet... weren't they the same?

Lin Xue staggered, her breath shallow. Her hands gripped her skull as the weight of lives unlived pressed inward.The mirrors shattered one by one, crumbling into trails of smoke as she passed.

A soft cough broke the silence.

From the shadows stepped a young man. His golden eyes glowed faintly in the dim.

He held a cracked jade talisman in trembling fingers.

"I wondered if you'd find this place," he said.

"Who are you?" Lin Xue asked.

"I am Xu Jian. My father was the last emperor before the world was rewritten.He died believing the Tyrant was not a tyrant."

He placed the jade talisman into her hands.

The moment it touched her skin, it pulsed.A voice from her childhood surfaced—buried, old, but unmistakably hers:

"If they must call you cruel to stay safe, let them."

She dropped to one knee as the weight of the truth slammed into her chest.

Then the tomb shook.A roar split the air.Chains rained from above, clinking like metal prayers.

The Ashbound Warden emerged.

It was a monstrosity—part steel, part celestial fire.A hound forged by the heavens, but starved by duty, bound by history, and filled with rage it could no longer name.

Xu Jian stepped back.

"Only memory can harm it."

Lin Xue let go.

Not of her weapon.Not of her form.But of the present.

Her mind dropped into memory:

Her first act of mercy, mocked as weakness.

The betrayal at the Jade Summit, where trust died.

Yan Zhuo's hand, letting go of hers during the final trial, because he believed she must walk alone.

The Warden lunged, jaws aglow with holy fire.

But her memories burned brighter—Each one a spear of blue flame.They pierced the Warden's chest, ribs, and skull.

It screamed—not forward, but in reverse, howling as if trying to forget its own birth.

And then—A deeper memory.

Hidden.Sealed.Sacred.

Yue Lian kneeling before a pyre, her robes wet with rain.Her voice was soft, but unshaking:

"Let me be forgotten.Let them thrive."

That memory broke the Warden.

Its chains unraveled.Its form disintegrated.Light poured into Lin Xue's chest, fusing with her flame.

The Third Flame awoke.

Not as fire.

But as remembrance incarnate.

Silence followed.

Xu Jian stared at her—not with fear, but with reverence.

"You're not Lin Xue anymore, are you?"

She stood tall. Her shadow stretched in all directions.

"I am both," she said."I am what remains."

The walls of the tomb crumbled softly, like peeling parchment.In the heart of the chamber, a crystal coffin rested beneath the fractured sky.

Within it, a girl slept.

She was identical to Lin Xue.Peaceful.Youthful.Eternal.

Lin Xue approached, flame in hand.

The girl's eyes opened.

"You've returned," the voice said—not aloud, but within her.

Lin Xue collapsed to her knees, trembling.

It wasn't someone else.

It was her.

Yue Lian.

"I sealed myself in this tomb," the voice said. "I split myself.I became Lin Xue so the world could forget the name they feared."

The Third Flame flared.Her shadow stretched across stars, across time.

"You must remember why you were feared," the voice continued."Not for cruelty.But for choosing peace over vengeance.For loving them so deeply…you let them hate you."

Lin Xue rose slowly.

Her eyes no longer flickered—they glowed, steady and calm.

"Then let them fear me again…if it means they remember the truth."

The crystal coffin melted into ash, scattering into the void.

Above them, one of the three suns dimmed.

And then vanished.

Far away, in Blackfeather Province, Ji Wuxian screamed.

Flame raced through his veins, inscribing memories not his own into his soul.

His mirror shattered. His talismans blackened.

And in the Celestial Court, a scroll—sealed for ten thousand years—tore open in blood.

A judge whispered, trembling:

"The Tyrant's Path stirs."