Chapter 104 The Orphan Flame

• The first signs were small. A campfire in the Southern Watch burned colder than it should have. Logs blackened but never glowed. Guards near it wept without knowing why — claiming they’d remembered things they’d never lived.
• Then came the stone hearths in the old training halls. Flames began flickering in unfamiliar colors — rust red, smoke-grey, bruised violet. When one Flame Guard tried to touch it, he recoiled in horror.
• “It wasn’t fire,” he whispered. “It was grief.”