That night, Lian Qiao fell asleep with her hand still resting on the Flamebinder's hilt.
She hadn't meant to.
But exhaustion — the kind that came from unraveling one's soul, not one's limbs — had pulled her under like a tide too ancient to fight.
What she saw in her sleep wasn't a dream.
It was a memory.A sealed one.One the Void had tried to bury.
Somewhere Long Ago — The Last Southern Night
Lian Hua stood at the edge of a fractured cliff, flames dripping from her torn sleeves like melting gold.
The sky above her wasn't sky — it was screaming.
Not sound. Not light.Just pressure.Unreal.Hungry.
Across the shattered battlefield, the Council's sealers had already fallen. The jade towers of the Southern Sky cracked one by one.
And in the center of it all — rising from the lake of her people's blood — was a shape.
Shapeless. Soundless.
But not silent.
"Let me in," it had whispered."I will give you everything. I will make him yours forever."
She had heard it.Felt it.
A temptation not of power — but of completion.
And Mo Yujin, unconscious in her arms, his divine form flickering, had not heard the voice at all.
Only she had.
And she had made a choice.
"You don't get to take him," she whispered."Not him. Not me. Not again."
She had kissed his forehead.
Placed the last lotus seal into her own heart.
And burned.
Flames erupted from her skin — red, gold, white-hot.A fifth flame.
One not born of element, but of will.
The Seal of Final Love.
Present Day — Peach Blossom Sect
Lian Qiao woke up with a scream caught in her throat.
Her skin was hot. Not like a fever — but like she'd swallowed lightning.
The Flamebinder pulsed beside her.
But now… so did something else.
A flicker beneath her ribs.
A flame she hadn't lit.
She stumbled to the mirror. Pulled down her collar.
And there — just beneath the lotus mark — glowed a second seal.
This one was not part of the Binding Thread.
This one was hers.
"The fifth flame…" she whispered. "It survived."
Elsewhere — Eastern Sky
Mo Yujin jolted upright from his trance.
He touched his chest — a scar he hadn't remembered flickered with faint heat.
A flame.Not his.
Hers.
His voice was hoarse when he spoke.
"What did you do for me, Lian Hua?"
Mirror Moon Lake
The water glowed now — pulsing at midnight like a heartbeat.
And beneath the surface, something stirred, speaking in a voice that wasn't voice at all:
"She is whole again.But she does not remember what her love cost.Let her remember too late…So I may take what is mine."