Year sixty-one of the firefolk era, seven days after the spring equinox.
Beside the Ruin Abyss well, Xiaoman gently planted the Heart Flame charcoal pencil that had accompanied him for three years in the soil by the well.
"It was tired," he said. "It drew ninety-nine names and traveled every earth-vein map of the Nine Provinces. It deserved a rest."
The children gathered around, watching the charcoal pencil, black as charred wood, its tip faintly shining, stand alone in the soil like a shoot not yet grown.
"Will it die?" a child asked.
"No." Xiaoman shook his head. "It isn't an ordinary pencil. It's a Flame Seed. Flame Seeds never go out. They only—burn in another way."
For three days, no rain fell, yet the soil did not dry.
For seven days, no wind blew, yet the pencil did not topple.
On the morning of the ninth day, someone cried out:
"The pencil tip... it's sprouting!"
Everyone rushed to the well—there, from the charcoal pencil's tip, a tender green stem had emerged, fine as a hair yet shimmering faintly, as though fireflies flowed within it.
A He knelt to examine it, lightly touching the shoot with a fingertip—a warm current traveled up his finger straight to his heart, like a drink of water from the Heart Flame River.
"It's alive," he murmured. "It's putting down roots."
Spring rain fell for seven days without pause.
The green shoot grew three inches a day, its stem gradually thickening, its leaves like charcoal marks, their veins like pencil strokes, their surfaces glowing softly, shining on their own every night.
Stranger still—
Whenever a newly initiated carving child drew with a charcoal pencil, the tree glowed faintly the instant the pencil tip touched paper;
**Whenever a dry well flowed again and the earth veins