PART ONE: DIVINE INHERITANCE

  I

  I Was Born in a Cocoon

  A strand of flame snaked through the underground chamber, painting the roots in gold. In its glow, the egg glimmered—its skin smooth like silk, half my size, nestled in a hollow of ancient wood.

  My pupils shrunk against the light. Strips of new wood grew around and through the cavity as if the tree was closing the wound.

  I turned behind me. Mother’s muscled arms were folded on top of each other. Sharp facial features danced underneath the wisp circling overhead, and her hair gleamed the colour of blood yet to be spilled.

  Uncle stood beside her, his expression loose despite the wrinkles and full grey beard.

  “This is what I came out of?” I asked. I cringed at how loud my voice reverberated.

  “It’s where Roland said he found you,” Mother said.

  I closed my eyes and recited a short prayer at the mention of Father.

  The underground rumbling softly in response could’ve been my imagination.

  Uncle Gerald sneaked a glance at Mother, waited a beat, then sighed when she didn’t speak up again. “He was searching for treasures.”

  Mother fixed the gangly man with a glare.

  Uncle shrugged her off. “Back then, the Sunstriders were but a shadow of who we are now. Few in number. Small of spirit. Easy to prey on. Roland found this place on one of his expeditions. He called it the Womb Root.”

  The wisp in the image of a wingless dragon flew and revealed the dark bark of the tree. Spiked and rough, twisting and rising, the trunk of the tree burrowed through the earth. Completely unlike the crown, which was airy and vibrated with life.

  The tree’s fruits eased the awakening of a cultivator’s core. I always thought Father built the estate beside the tree for that reason, but perhaps…

  Mother scoffed. “Don’t overestimate your importance.”

  I frowned. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “It’s written on your face.”

  Uncle lifted his hand so the wisp sunk back into his palm. Shadows gained ground and swallowed part of Mother’s face.

  “Do you understand, now, Ashe?” he said.

  I looked away. This couldn’t be everything left of my past.

  “Was there anything on my person?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Uncle said. “If there was, Roland took it with him to the grave.”

  My hair whipped side-to-side. “There cannot have been nothing.” But my voice was more murmur than anything.

  Mother’s feet carried her to my side. She was tall, six-foot-three, but my eighteenth birthday had seen me surpass her so she couldn’t glare me down like she did Uncle. Yet her spiritual pressure made me think myself an ant compared to her.

  “Despite not being our blood, Roland accepted you with open arms. He wrote you into our will so not even your children’s children would know hardship. Knowing this, you insist on entering Everwinter?”

  And what grateful, adopted child, would want such a thing? To leave behind a life freely gifted for a chance at uncovering her past in a mystic realm? A past that may not even exist.

  “…Yes,” I sniffed, and turned away—

  Her fingers, the tips hard like steel, wrenched my head back. “Look me in the eye.”

  They were a blazing red. A sea of flame which swallowed and destroyed anything in its path.

  My throat locked up. An excess of snot blocked my nose. Pleading, I searched for Uncle Gerald…

  Who minutely shook his head. ‘This is on you, child.’

  And so back to the fires. I breathed in and set my shoulders. A stream of warmth trickled from my stomach into my chest.

  “Yes,” I said again.

  Her digits tightened on my jaw. She didn’t speak but searched my gaze. What she saw loosened her hold. I don’t know what hurt more: the way she shrunk back like I struck her or the way she stormed off without a word.

  Her thundering footfalls stopped at the beginning of the staircase leading out of the underground.

  “Two weeks.” She looked over her shoulder, her eyes still piercing me in the same manner. “We’ll spar. If you can manage to land a clean blow on me, I’ll speak to the Dawnchasers myself.”

  “That’s not fair, Mother!” I cried.

  She was a hundred levels above me!

  “Why not?” she said. “You have that oh-so important heritage of yours to help you, right?”

  I bit my lip. When a retort failed to leave my mouth seconds later, Mother disappeared upstairs, leaving me alone with Uncle.

  The old man scratched his balding pate. “That went better than I expected to be honest.”

  Pinching my forehead, I drew in a deep breath.

  He approached and tapped me on the shoulder. “Don’t take her words to heart, kiddo. She’s just angry.”

  My shoulders sagged. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful, Uncle.”

  “I know. Millicent knows too. But you’re asking to be sent into Everwinter, child. Even though our clan is well-off, buying a spot from the Dawnchasers will cost a fortune. Not to mention the risk…”

  The most promising of the young masters gathered in Everwinter and would all fight over the inheritances purposefully left within the realm. It was not a place for just anyone to enter.

  But I was not ‘just anyone’. Father would kill me before ever allowing me to think such.

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  “I’ll make it work,” I said.

  He patted my shoulder again. “I look forward to it.”

  Then he was off as well. With his ambient light gone, I was truly left within the darkness of the underground, its purity kept at bay only by the shred of light coming from the entrance.

  ‘Two weeks…’

  I turned to the cocoon. “You’ll have to help me.”

  The cradle didn’t respond, of course. I didn’t despair. There was a reason I was still holding out hope, despite the enormity of my task.

  My gaze went to my status screen, which showed in bold letters:

  Ashe Sunstrider - Human (F)

  Level: 1

  Class: None

  Stage: Early Novice

  Titles: [Flame Rebirth]

  Soul Skill: None

  Core Skills: None

  Vitality: 5

  Strength: 8

  Dexterity: 5

  Fortitude: 8

  Perception: 7

  Arcane: 11

  Free Points: 0

  Titles: [Flame Rebirth]

  Flame Rebirth. You’ve underwent an infant form of reincarnation. Cultivation speed increased. Increased experience gain from all sources. Increased insight speed when comprehending fire-related laws, arts, or essences.

  I sighed, then sat down and found my breathing rhythm.

  ‘One step at a time.’

  Beating Mother without a class wasn’t possible—she was in the middle of E-grade—but unlocking one wasn’t an issue. In fact, I could get one right now.

  Class unlock available! Would you like to unlock your class? [Y/N]

  So lauded a message in my screen. Every cultivator received it after awakening their core. But accepting without proper preparation was a great way to stunt your growth. Each class offered a soul skill and three core skills. Your soul skill and the first of your core skills unlocked right away. Your remaining two core skills unlocked at Middle and Late Novice, lvl. 8 and 16 respectively.

  What really mattered, however, was the rarity of your class. It alone decided the quality and potential of all your abilities.

  Mother had trained me in the martial arts since I could walk, so I was likely looking at an Uncommon class. Perhaps a Rare one if I got lucky. That was better than ninety percent of starting cultivators could hope for. But it wasn’t enough. Not for me.

  I exhaled and rotated my essence. After unlocking my core with the help of the Womb Root, I’d heard…a set of voices. Calling them such wasn’t entirely correct. It wasn’t like someone had spoken to me but more that my brain replayed me memories I hadn’t had before.

  ‘The Plane is a fascinating place. Should you want to, you may one day visit it.’

  The first voice was that of a woman.

  ‘You will lack the counsel that is regular. But the connection is already inside you. You need only to imagine it. To feel it.’

  The second voice was that of a man.

  I couldn’t link either of them to anyone I’d spoken to in my life.

  My absolute first thought after discovering these memories was: ‘Have I gone insane?’

  Immediately afterwards, however, I realised this was my ticket to a higher station. Though I didn’t know what this Plane was, accessing it through this connection should count towards my achievements, which would help me unlock a better class.

  Breathing in deep, I emptied my head.

  ‘Feel for a connection.’

  …

  Where was this connection even supposed to be? Inside me didn’t say much.

  “Can you at least give me an identifying mark?” I said to the air. What if I found it but didn’t recognise it?

  The memories had no such thing for me.

  I sighed. ‘Guess I’ll just look everywhere.’

  Having my infant spiritual senses scour my entire body would be gruelling work though…laziness and procrastination tried to sink their hooks into my flesh, so I pulled an old trick out of my bag and thought of my engagement at the end of the year.

  The image of a fat, old man welcoming me into his home shot through my mind for but a second.

  My breathing slowed. My heart rate lowered. The minute, erratic and reflexive movements of my body quit until I was sitting entirely still.

  ‘Imagine it,’ the male voice said. ‘A world of infinite fire.’

  A core of heat sprouted in my mind, a roaring warmth that grew and consumed all.

  I clung onto that idea as I searched. I continued until my stomach was on the verge of collapse and not a bar of light reached the underground from the staircase.

  Nothing had jumped out at me.

  With a sigh, I stood and headed for the exit, but bowed towards the Womb Root before leaving. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  I was sitting in front of the Womb Root again the next morning. The second day passed much like the first. I strained my mental faculties, tried to imagine a ‘world of infinite fire’—could you even imagine something infinite?—but nothing made itself known to me.

  It was afternoon when I broke from my meditation and my posture slumped. ‘What am I missing?’

  It cannot just be a matter of not knowing where it is. In the two days, I’d scanned my body fifteen times over. Every hole you could think of. Even behind my core, in case the small amount of essence gathered there was hiding it.

  And so the second day passed fruitlessly. The third day was on course for passing in the same manner. But as light began to filter from the skies, another memory popped into my head.

  ‘To grasp it fully,’ the man said, ‘you cannot just imagine it. You must experience it.’

  ‘Experience it…’ I thought.

  I must experience extreme heat? My chin tipped towards the ceiling. That wasn’t really possible out here. Sun City’s climate, unlike the name suggested, was moderate.

  The sole sources of heat capable of making people uncomfortable were…

  “Cultivators.”

  I got to my feet and rushed out of the underground.

  “Have you gone insane?” Uncle said.

  He was in the dining room, watching sports through a sphere projecting images in the air. Two teams of cultivators were playing a game of dodgeball but with techniques that’d rip me to shreds by just being near them.

  “I’m still sane, Uncle,” I said.

  I think, I didn’t add.

  He sighed and put away his sphere. “Children these days,” he muttered. But he got to his feet and followed me outside.

  I led him to the garden. The Womb Root loomed in the centre and dwarfed the other greenery around it. The staircase at its base drew my gaze, but this was better done on the surface.

  “I just need to generate a ball of flame near you, right?” Uncle said.

  “Yes,” I took a seat on a patch of open space.

  Uncle’s spirit exceeded that of most in our clan, so a trivial task like this wasn’t worth a swipe of his hand. The ball burst to life two arm’s length away from my face. Its heat was an uncomfortable touch, like dipping your head in a bowl of water a bit over halfway to boiling.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  “Please hold it there.”

  The ambient heat induced a jerking reflex in my neck, which wanted nothing but to turn away from it. Suppressing it drained my mind, and the easy, inner calm of the last few days was far away. Overhead, far up in the sky, the blazing star passed by.

  Part of my body entered a cooling shadow, softening the burn. Enough to let me hone my attention.

  While the energy burned me, in some places on my skin, the warmth didn’t just scald. It entered, crawled down my veins.

  “Please increase the heat, Uncle.”

  I didn’t spare enough attention to hear his response. My mind locked around the base of my power.

  Imagine it.

  Feel it.

  Slowly, the heat bubbling up my veins became like a stream of lava burrowing its way through a tunnel. I welcomed it. Followed its trajectory and…

  ‘There you are.’

  A shard, hidden deep in the recesses of my core. It was the shape of a diamond, thinner than a sheet of paper, less wide than a quarter of a phalanx. But it burned.

  My mind touched the fragment—

  A sharp sting forced me to shield my eyes despite having them closed.

  “Uncle, please stop doing that!”

  Though Uncle was on the older side, he loved playing tricks. It was just like him to flare the fireball in my eyes while I was meditating. But as I shied away and peered, I surveyed not a ball, but a world infinitely brighter than what one art could produce.

  At the furthest edges of sight raged a sea of flame. Indiscriminate and looming like the walls of a castle. Soft blades of grass tickled my thighs through my robes, and a myriad of flowers sprouted from the earth around me, ranging from orange to a sunny yellow. The more I inspected them, the more variations I noticed.

  A tall figure loomed in front of me. The tree was not a domineering entity, though it occupied the centre of the land. Its grey bark spotted with black looked soft. Three trunks intertwined at the base stretched into the air about thirty feet high, where they let go of each other and branched out, forming a low but open canopy. A faint gale whipped across the dark red foliage. As the leaves gently swayed back and forth, scattering embers into the air, the tree whispered.

  Ashe.

  And in that moment, a fact burnt into my mind:

  I was home—

  My head whipped backwards as if yanked by a titan. Eyelids shot open. I whirled side-to-side as a great weight sunk in my chest. What…where…The sun had fallen from the sky. Shadows shrouded our estate, and sign of the tree was gone.

  I blinked, gaze settling on Uncle.

  “Finally awake, are you?” He got to his feet and snapped both the book in his palm and the ember hovering beside him shut. “I’m going to get dinner.”

  He vanished before I could get a word in.

  I slowly turned behind me.

  What was that?

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