On the seventh night after the new shoot first unfurled, the Silver-Flame Ceramic Lamp in the Nanming Lamp-Guarding Shop suddenly rang without a breath of wind, its flame twisting into a pillar of light pointed toward the heavens. Xiaoman jolted awake from meditation, the Heart Flame Source Core in his chest pounding violently, as though drawn by some distant, ponderous presence. He looked up at the night sky—the Lampheart Moon, which should have hung high overhead, was slowly dimming. The edges of its outline flaked away like ash, scattering fine light dust like tears.
"The Lampheart Moon... is going to fall?" Yue Yi stood on the roof, her light staff pointed toward the sky, her voice trembling as it rarely did. "It has hung in the highest heavens since the first years of the Light Language Era, an eternal lamp formed from the collective heart flames of the first Lamp Guarders. If it goes out, the Nine Provinces Lamp Array will lose its chief guide, and the root of light language will fall dormant once more."
Xiaoman gazed at the new shoot of the root of light language. The luminous patterns on its tender leaves flickered in time with the dimming Lampheart Moon above, as though mother and child were calling to each other. He suddenly understood—the Lampheart Moon was not a celestial body, but a heart core that had drifted beyond the heavens after the root of light language broke apart. For a thousand years, it had operated alone, maintaining the balance between the Lamp Arrays and civilization. Now that the root's veins had rekindled, it sensed the call of Source Return, but its incomplete body could not return on its own. High in the heavens, it was approaching its final disintegration.
"It isn't about to fall," Xiaoman murmured.