The tent was dim, lit only by the soft glow of spirit-inked lanterns. The air was heavy with the scent of burnt herbs and the lingering tension from the earlier battle. Seeing their worn-out looks as they were walking back to town, Halgun had kindly offered his tent for them to stay in, much to Sanwu's surprise and gratitude. Sanwu sat cross-legged on a worn mat, his eyes closed, attempting to center himself. Eunchae paced nearby, her footsteps restless.

"I felt it again," she said, breaking the silence.

Sanwu opened his eyes, looking at her with concern.

"The voice. The power. It's not just a whisper anymore. It's...louder."

He nodded slowly. "It's the shard. It's growing stronger."

She stopped pacing, turning to face him. "What if I'm not meant to resist it?"

Sanwu's expression hardened. "Then I've already failed."

Eunchae's eyes narrowed. "Failed? You're not responsible for what's inside me."

"But I am responsible for guiding you. If I can't help you control it, then what's the point?"

Before she could respond, the tent's entrance flapped open. A figure stepped in, cloaked in shadows.

"Interesting conversation," the newcomer said.

Sanwu stood abruptly. "Hojin?" He frowned, surprised to see the man standing in front of him.

Hojin stepped into the light, his eyes scanning the room before staring hard at Sanwu. "You didn't think I would just let you leave and continue to wreak havoc, did you?" He asked mockingly, his eyes settling on Eunchae. "And who might you be?"

Eunchae looked between the two men, uncertain.

"She's my student," Sanwu said, stepping protectively in front of her.

Hojin raised an eyebrow. "Student? Or experiment?"

Sanwu's jaw tightened. "She's learning to control the shard's influence."

"Control? From what I heard, she's considering surrendering to it."

Eunchae stepped forward. "I never said that."

Hojin smirked. "But you thought it."

Sanwu interjected, "Hojin, this isn't the time."

"Isn't it? You're endangering her by teaching restraint instead of control."

Eunchae looked at Sanwu, confusion evident on her face. "What's the difference?"

Hojin answered, "Restraint is holding back. Control is mastering. One is passive, the other active."

Sanwu shook his head. "If we bind her, she is lost. If we teach her fear, we are no better than the ones who sealed me."

Hojin's eyes flashed. "And if she loses control? What then?"

Eunchae stepped between them. "Enough. This isn't helping."

The tension in the tent was palpable. Sanwu looked at her, his expression softening.

"You're right. But we need to decide on a path forward."

Hojin crossed his arms. "She needs to learn control. Real control."

Sanwu met his gaze. "And she will. But not through fear."

The tent walls trembled faintly with distant thunder, though no storm brewed above. Only the low, constant groan of the Market's belly—the sighs of relics whispering, of bindings strained and spirits muffled beneath tarps and stones—echoed through the tunnels. Halgun ducked into the tent, sweeping off his soot-lined hood with a rustle of old cloth and pages.

"You should all hear this," he said. His voice, always a ramble, had sharpened like a cracked bell. He stopped briefly when he saw the guest staring right at him. Halgun turned his attention toward Sanwu, raising a brow.

Sanwu just sighed, shaking his head. "He's a friend of mine,"

Hojin snorted bitterly, rolling his eyes. "Hardly,"

Halgun's gaze darted between the two, but he eventually shrugs, not caring in the slightest, what the history between the two of them might have been. "Word's spreading faster than coin. There's a new faction. Calling themselves the Ash Banner."

Sanwu didn't look up. He sat still, back straight, his last prayer bead clutched between thumb and forefinger. He had turned the others over the days—given them away, one by one, to spirits, to people, to silence. This was the last. Worn smooth, the groove of old thumbprints etched into it. A ritual now stripped bare.

"Ash Banner," Hojin said without looking up. He knelt in the corner, a small whetstone in hand, slowly drawing it along the curve of his blade. The sound—scrape, pause, scrape—was unnerving in the stillness. "Sounds like another nest of fools."

"They believe the War God must be reborn," Halgun went on, lowering himself to sit by the tent's center flame. "Not worshiped. Not feared. Resurrected. Purified by ash, they say. As the world should be."

Eunchae froze mid-breath. "Reborn?"

"They've taken to fire," Halgun said. "Cities left hollow. Ash symbols drawn in soot. They speak of cleansing—of burning down the sickness." He glanced toward Sanwu, then Hojin. "But sickness doesn't begin in villages. It begins here. This Market...it's not just where rot is traded. It is rot."

Hojin exhaled through his nose. "I've seen what purity in the name of gods looks like. So has he," he added, nodding toward Sanwu. "Burning the world won't cure it."

Sanwu didn't speak. The bead rolled slightly between his fingers. He felt the thread that had once connected it to the strand. Frayed. Barely intact. A ritual meant to restrain, now clutched like a memory.

Halgun leaned forward. "They're seeking shards. All of them. Not for control, not for protection—for communion. To become the War God's voice again. His hands. His breath."

"The Market will sell to them," Hojin muttered.

"The Market already has," Halgun replied.

Sanwu finally spoke, voice low. "They believe in his return. Do they know what he was?"

"They see the stories," Halgun answered. "They see strength. Fire that doesn't beg. A god that answers."

Eunchae said nothing. Her hands rested on her knees, still. But her knuckles were white.

Sanwu turned the bead once more. "Despair makes prophets of the desperate. And weapons of the broken."

There was a long silence. Outside, the hum of spirit wards flared faintly, like warning lights beneath a layer of skin. Somewhere, a cry rang out—quick, then gone. Too far to be answered.

Halgun looked toward the tent flap, almost nervously. "There are whispers the Ash Banner has a child. One born with fire in her veins. They say she was touched by a shard at birth. That she dreams of ruin, and does not wake screaming."

No one moved. The air stilled.

"People will follow anything," Hojin said, at last, his voice a rasp. He slid the whetstone into his pack, then tested the edge of his blade. "Especially something that promises they'll be spared."

Sanwu placed the bead gently down beside him. He did not let go.

"It's spreading," Halgun said, softer now. "Not like the plague. Like song. A song the Market hums in its sleep."

"I saw it," Sanwu murmured. "In the man who sold the vessel. In the crowd who watched. In the silence that followed."

Eunchae stood and walked quietly to the back of the tent where Halgun's relic table sat—a canvas mat strewn with protective charms, cloth-wrapped bundles, bone-dust pots, and boxes of sealed fragments. She reached down and picked up a shard in a small iron frame. It shimmered faintly in the lantern light, as if responding to her presence.

"I don't want to burn," she whispered.

Halgun's eyes flicked to her.

"I don't want to be a fire they follow. Or fear."

Sanwu watched her, but said nothing.

She turned the shard in her hands, its edges catching sparks of her reflection.

"But when I touched that one outside," she said, voice barely audible, "I didn't feel danger. I felt... seen. Like it knew me."

The shard pulsed once. Barely visible. Like breath drawn and held. "I see fire when I sleep now," she said. "Not just flames. Thrones of ash. Cities of smoke. A crown."

Her reflection in the shard shifted—just slightly. Her eyes in it were too bright. Her mouth, unsmiling. And behind her, in the shard's warped surface, flickered a suggestion of robes not her own, and embers swirling in the air like court dancers.

She stared, silent.

Sanwu rose to his feet, the prayer bead still in hand.

"Put it down," he said gently.

"I don't want to be him," she replied, her voice breaking. "But I don't know who I am without him."

"Let me remind you," he said. She did not respond. Her eyes remained on the shard.

In its surface, a girl of fire stared back.

Not a girl. A queen. A silhouette crowned in smoke.

And for a breathless moment, there was no difference.

The lantern's flame flickered.

And the tent went quiet.