The flame was not fire.
It pulsed in place, hovering above the pedestal in the silent chamber beneath Mount Victoria. It flickered like something alive, breathing, but it gave off no heat. Just the faintest pressure — like standing in the presence of someone remembering your name before you ever met.
Thuta reached for it.
The moment his fingers touched the edge, it wasn't pain that took him — it was memory.
---
A circle of Zawgyi stood in a cavern, torches flickering around them. They were not the painted sorcerers of legends — they were tired, some scarred, many aged far beyond their years. They chanted in rhythm, voices unified in tone but different in cadence — old dialects braided together into something that bent the air.
In the center, a flame floated.
A living fire, shaped not by fuel, but by will.
One by one, they stepped forward and breathed into it.
But not breath — soul.
Their knowledge, regrets, techniques, and truths poured into the fire. One man whispered a formula to slow death. Another, a method to change blood into light. A third wept and gave only silence.
The last figure — cloaked, tall — stepped forward and placed his palm into the flame.
Thuta felt the mark burn again on his own skin.
"We seal this breath not as a weapon," the final Zawgyi intoned, "but as a bridge. The one who inherits this fire must walk both ways — backward, to remember. Forward, to unmake."
Then darkness.
---
Thuta gasped and staggered backward, nearly falling. He wasn't in the ritual chamber — he was now in a stone hallway with no visible end.
A voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere.
"To shape the world, you must be willing to burn your own."
He looked down. In his hand — not real, but symbolic — was a glowing red ember.
Ahead, two doors appeared.
One led to a vision: himself, free, alone, his sigil removed. Powerless, but safe. He saw a quiet life. A tea shop in Mawlamyine. A cat. He saw peace.
The other door showed the world — cities burning, flames shaped by symbols, people kneeling at altars that bore his sigil. Power. Influence. Fear.
"Choose," said the voice.
He hesitated.
Then he threw the ember down.
"I don't want either," he said. "I just want to know the truth."
Silence.
Then, laughter. Not mocking. Almost… relieved.
The doors vanished.
And Thuta woke up.
---
He lay in the chamber again. Cold stone beneath him. The pedestal now empty.
The flame was gone.
He sat up slowly, palm aching.
The sigil had changed.
Where once there was a single spiral, now there were two — overlapping, forming a twisted helix of fire and ash.
The scroll in his satchel pulsed faintly. He unrolled it.
New words had appeared:
"The Breath is given. What you change, remembers you."
He didn't know what that meant.
But he felt… heavier. As if the mountain had pressed something inside him. Not just power. Responsibility.
He stepped away from the pedestal. The chamber was unchanged. Silent.
But he wasn't.
---
Outside the door, the stairwell twisted back into darkness.
As he began the climb, he paused. Something felt… wrong.
He flattened himself against the wall and listened.
Footsteps.
Not echoing. Not his own.
Someone was descending.
He ducked into a shadowed alcove, breath shallow.
A figure appeared moments later, tall, slow-moving. They carried a satchel that clinked with metal. Their hat cast their face in shadow.
Not the driver. Not a villager.
The Watcher?
The figure paused near the base of the stairs. Turned its head slightly. As if listening to the air itself.
Then it passed beneath Thuta's hiding spot, continuing into the depths.
He waited until the footsteps were gone.
Then he ran.
---
Outside, the storm had broken.
Rain crashed down onto the mountain, washing mud in great sheets over the path. Lightning lit the sky like shattered bone.
Thuta didn't stop.
He didn't look back.
Not yet.
He didn't want to know if the mountain was watching.
Or if the man in the dark had found what he left behind.
-----