Year eighteen of the Firefolk Era, winter solstice.
Su Li returned from Gray Ridge Village, her shoulders covered in frost and snow, a roll of bamboo slips wrapped tightly against her chest—the Hearthfire Record.
When she descended from the Starfire Platform, dawn had yet to break. Nine Provinces City still slept, its lanes deep and shadowed, dew hanging from the eaves. Night watchmen curled beneath lamps, dozing. The city's thousands of ever-burning lamps lay scattered like stars, yet could not illuminate the cold deep within people's hearts.
She did not return to Starfire Hall, meet the elders, or send any written notice. She simply climbed to the highest point in the Nine Provinces—the Lamp-Watching Platform.
The Lamp-Watching Platform had originally been a place for observing the stars in ancient times, later becoming the site where Starfire Envoys monitored the pulse of the Lamp River. That night, Su Li stood at its center and slowly unfurled the Hearthfire Record. Using a fragment of Heartfire Jade as a kindling guide, she ignited one corner of the bamboo slips.
The flame rose neither from wind nor with the aid of oil, but was born of intent—like the first spark catching fire.
In an instant, the entire roll of bamboo slips ignited of its own accord. Its light was not fierce, but gentle and warm as the first gleam of dawn. Within the firelight, every word rose and became a point of light, like a thousand fireflies, scattering on the wind toward the Nine Provinces and Eight Wastes.
The lamps descended.
The first lamp descended upon the Northern Frontier Frostlands. Inside a herder's tent, an old woman was mending worn clothes for her grandson when she suddenly felt the hearth fire leap. A thread of light drifted through the window and settled in the