Year twelve of the Firefolk Era, Awakening of Insects.
As spring thunder first stirred, the Starfire River of the Nine Provinces suddenly darkened. Starfire Envoy A Lu was patrolling the edge of Dead Ash Marsh when he saw hundreds of extinguished Starfire Lamps scattered through the mud amid a stretch of ruins. Their bodies were broken, their crystals dim, as though they had been forgotten for years. He crouched and picked one up, intending to gather its remains, when he suddenly felt warmth in his palm—the ashes inside the lamp were faintly hot, and an exceedingly fine thread of flame rose from them, pulsing gently like a breath.
He held his breath and focused, sensing it with his Heart Flame, and heard a whisper like wind passing over a ruined stele: "...The flame...has not died...it is only...sleeping..."
Cinder Flame still remained!
The news spread throughout the Nine Provinces, and the Starfire Envoys gathered at Dead Ash Marsh. With A He's Heart Flame as the guide, Su Li's mechanisms as the medium, and Qing Ci's Record of Mortal Flames as the covenant, they sat in a circle amid the ruins, picking up the extinguished lamps one by one, nurturing them with Heart Flame and watering them with vows. For seven days and seven nights, they neither slept nor rested.
At dawn on the eighth day, the first lamp kindled on its own.
Its flame was weak, yet the face of an unfamiliar old man appeared clearly within it—his hair and beard were white as snow, he held a pair of fire tongs, and his clothes were covered in scorch marks, but an undying light shone in his eyes. He looked at them, his voice hoarse as scraping rusted iron: "My name...is Sui Xuan...the first Fire Artisan...the Flame Seed...was not bestowed by