Some warriors are forged in fire.

  Others are carved in silence.

  Ilan Lakandula never truly awoke.

  He remembered.

  At just seventeen, he bore the weight of centuries.

  Long before the jade-green fragment of the Legacy Jewel—the Verdant Shard, Lakandula's Oath—chose him, Ilan was already listening. He lived in the mangrove-wrapped edges of Mt. Banahaw, in a house raised on ancestral bones and stories, where storms passed like respectful guests. His grandmother, ageless and quiet-eyed, taught him how to read the language of birdsong, how to ask permission from rivers, how to listen to trees not with ears, but with stillness.

  Where others sought power, Ilan sought balance.

  He believed every force awakened must also be honored. Even as a child, he knew how to bury a word in soil and let it bloom into guidance. When the elders whispered of old rites and broken pacts, he didn't ask for the details—he listened for the intention. For Ilan, power meant responsibility, not glory.

  But in the quiet of dawn, when dew still clung to the leaves and the wind had not yet spoken, Ilan sometimes wondered:

  What would it feel like to be free of it all?

  He never said it aloud. Not even to his grandmother. But the thought lingered like a guilty echo.

  He was seventeen.

  He wanted to fall in love without visions interrupting his heartbeat.

  He wanted to dance at fiestas without the weight of a thousand names pressing on his spine.

  He wanted to laugh without feeling guilty that somewhere, an ancestor's oath was still unfinished.

  But the mountain never stopped watching.

  The Shard didn't fall from the sky like fire or thunder. It grew beneath his home, tangled in the roots of a centuries-old balete tree. When he found it, it wasn't shining—it was sleeping. When he touched it, it didn't burn—it breathed.

  And with that breath came visions: of Rajah Lakandula standing defiant beneath starlight. Of Spanish galleons burning in a bay of thunder. Of royal blood choosing not to fight with swords, but with strategy. Diplomacy woven in rebellion.

  That was the moment Ilan realized—he didn't just inherit power.

  He inherited memory.

  The Shard tethered his soul to a stream of time buried in his blood. In meditation, his spirit slipped into echoes—ceremonies, wars, betrayals. He spoke to his ancestors like they were neighbors. Each one left behind fragments of themselves, not to control him, but to remind him: You are part of something bigger.

  But sometimes... he didn't want to be.

  One night, sitting beside a flickering oil lamp and the silent, ancient shard, Ilan whispered:

  "Do I even have a choice?"

  He expected silence.

  But the wind outside paused, like it was listening.

  And then, from within, a voice—not loud, not commanding. Gentle. Like water under stone.

  "The oath was never meant to cage you, apo. It was meant to remind you: Even in joy, you are never alone."

  Tears welled up before he could stop them.

  It wasn't that he hated the legacy.

  It was that it had always been there. Since birth. In every prayer, every step, every lesson. It had shaped his soul before he ever had the chance to shape his own dreams.

  And yet... beneath the grief, the fatigue, the longing to be normal—he understood.

  He was not chosen because he was perfect.

  He was chosen because he listened.

  Because he felt.

  Because he carried not just the weight—but the wonder—of what came before.

  His strength wasn't in destruction. It was in understanding.

  And sometimes, that was the most dangerous—and sacred—thing of all.

  So Ilan stood beneath the balete tree at sunrise, the Verdant Shard pulsing softly against his palm, the forest whispering secrets around him.

  He was seventeen.

  Still tired. Still longing.

  But now, with eyes clear and heart open, he bowed to the mountain.

  "I'll carry you," he whispered. "But let me live, too."

  And the wind answered, yes.

  A flashback from Ilan Lakandula's past, age 12

  The night was thick with the scent of burning herbs. A storm growled over the sea, but the wind had not yet come. Ilan sat cross-legged inside their bamboo home, watching Lola Laya grind something into a dark paste leaves, salt, ashes, and something he could never name.

  She was humming.

  Not a lullaby.

  A chant.

  "Lola," he asked, "why do I always dream of places I've never been?"

  Lola Laya didn't answer right away. Instead, she took the mixture and smeared it across his forehead and chest. "To wake up," she murmured, "sometimes, you have to sleep first."

  "I don't understand," Ilan whispered.

  She looked at him then truly looked. Her eyes weren't just old. They were ancient. "You were born with memory in your marrow," she said. "Not everyone is. Most forget. Most live. But you, anak... you remember."

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  "Remember what?"

  She leaned in close and took his small hands into her wrinkled ones. Her fingers were cold, but her grip was strong.

  "Our bloodline is old. Older than cities. Older than names. We descend from Rajah Lakandula—not just in name, but in spirit. He wasn't just a ruler. He was a keeper. A speaker of lands. A binder of spirits. A friend to the Diwata and a threat to the colonizers."

  Ilan's breath caught.

  "You carry his soul, Ilan. Not metaphor. Not poetry. His spirit walks with you. Each generation, the bloodline chooses one. One who remembers. And this time... the spirits chose you."

  He felt it then a warmth spreading through his chest, a sudden weight behind his eyes.

  Lola Laya continued, her voice low, like a spell:

  "There is a storm coming, child. A darkness that once drowned our lands. It sleeps now, but not for long. General Malvado he is more than a man. He is a curse that keeps returning, wearing new faces. And when he rises again... you must already be standing."

  Ilan trembled. "But I'm just a boy."

  She smiled, tender and sad. "Then you will grow. Like the trees. Like the roots. And when the time comes, the land will know you. The spirits will know you."

  She touched his chest, over his heart. "And you will remember who you are."

  Outside, lightning split the sky. But Ilan wasn't afraid.

  Because something in him had just woken up

  Ilan Lakandula had known for years that Malvado would return.

  The warnings came not from prophets, but from the land itself. The winds grew restless. The rivers began to forget their own songs. Shadows stretched longer beneath the trees, and spirits once playful began to retreat into silence.

  In his dreams, the ancestors whispered a single truth:

  "The darkness is stirring again. And it remembers you."

  So Ilan prepared not with weapons, but with remembrance.

  He mapped ley lines with strands of woven grass. He buried charms beneath sleeping trees. He etched prayers into stone and let the tides carry them to the old gods.

  The first confrontation with a General of Malvado

  The jungle was burning.

  Smoke curled between the trees like angry ghosts. Charred branches clawed at the sky. Somewhere in the distance, villagers fled—shadows running from something too dark to name.

  Ilan Lakandula stood alone on the edge of the mangrove thicket, barefoot on trembling soil.

  He had felt it for days—a ripple in the memory of the land, like an old scar opening.

  Then it came.

  From the smoke and ash, a figure emerged.

  Durog. "I am timeless," the figure hissed. "I am General Durog, first hand of Malvado. And I have come to rip the memory from your soul."

  Obsidian armor fused with bone. Cursed flames licking his body. His mouth—a jagged grin. His voice scraped like rusted chains.

  "Ilan Lakandula. The boy who kneels. The boy who whispers."

  Ilan didn't flinch. Didn't run.

  He pressed one hand to the earth.

  And remembered.

  The Walk Through Memory flooded him—glimpses of Rajah Lakandula's final counsel, of lumad warriors protecting the old rivers, of sacred chants sung to pull storms apart.

  The ground responded.

  Roots curled upward, alert. Wind changed direction.

  Durog charged, blades of cursed fire erupting from his gauntlets, spinning in a helix of molten fury.

  Ilan moved—Stillness Mantle slowing time just enough.

  His staff Tigmamanok ng Lahi whirled to meet the blow. Wood struck flame—and held. The staff pulsed with ancestral light, absorbing some of the infernal energy and redirecting it into the earth. The soil cracked—but not from weakness. It cracked from power.

  Durog snarled. "You delay the inevitable."

  "I listen before I strike," Ilan replied.

  He stepped sideways, fluid as mist, spun the staff around, and struck Durog's side with the blunt end, blasting a shockwave of spiritual force that sent the general skidding across the clearing, carving a trench in the dirt.

  Before Durog could rise, Ilan slammed the staff into the ground and whispered, "Bangon, mga tagapagtanggol."

  The earth opened.

  Two Lumad Guardians—one shaped like a war carabao woven from vines, another like a jaguar of stone and smoke—burst from the roots. They didn't roar. They advanced with ancient dignity.

  Durog met them head-on.

  The carabao lowered its head, horns of bark crashing into cursed flame. Durog twisted midair, slashing downward, breaking through—but not without damage. His armor cracked where the jaguar's claws tore into him.

  From the side, Ilan struck again—his staff spinning, channeling wind and memory. Every hit whispered an old name, an old rite. Each connected strike did not just injure—it weighed down.

  Durog faltered. "You... speak with ghosts."

  "I don't speak," Ilan murmured, staff glowing brighter. "I carry them."

  Suddenly Durog screamed—a banshee howl—and unleashed a torrent of black fire, a spiraling vortex meant to incinerate all spirit.

  Ilan planted his staff and held his ground. Behind him, the mangrove trees lit up—green runes glowing from bark. His Earthkind Sovereignty surged.

  Vines lashed from every direction, forming a living dome around him. Spirits flickered inside—ancestors chanting, eyes glowing.

  The black flame hit the dome—and stalled. As if the land itself refused to burn.

  Durog roared again, rushing forward with a burning blade raised.

  Ilan stepped out from behind the shield.

  And fought.

  This time he met the fire.

  His staff spun like wind through trees, redirecting each blow, absorbing the heat and hurling it into the swamp. He ducked, rolled, then slammed the staff upward, striking Durog's chin, sending him staggering back. He followed with a two-handed swing into the general's ribcage—knocking sparks from the armor.

  The staff pulsed, and Ilan activated Rootcall Binding.

  The earth cracked beneath Durog's feet—and grasped him.

  Twisting vines—infused with memory and moonlight—snaked up his legs, chest, arms. They weren't just bindings—they were the land remembering every life Durog had scorched. Every river he poisoned. Every spirit he silenced.

  "You think this ends with vines?" Durog spat, struggling.

  "No," Ilan whispered, stepping forward, staff pointed at the ground. "It ends with truth."

  He plunged the staff into the earth—

  —and the jungle answered.

  A tremor shook the clearing. The mangrove trees swayed in unison. Then, from the soil below, an ancient ancestral seal rose—an old circle of stones and glowing runes.

  The spirits—hundreds of them—appeared in full now. Lumad elders. Fallen guardians. Warrior-priests. Women with eyes of riverlight. Children holding seed-pouches and fireflies.

  They surrounded Durog.

  Ilan raised the staff.

  "Hindi ka namin pinapatay."

  "Inaalaala ka namin."

  (We are not here to kill you. We are here to remember you.)

  With that, the earth opened.

  And Durog was pulled under—not into death, but into the memory of what he destroyed. The land itself sealed him in a prison of roots and stone, watched over by spirits who would never forget.

  Ilan stood alone once more.

  Sweat on his brow. Hands shaking. Not from fear.

  But from the immensity of what had passed through him.

  He wasn't just a warrior.

  He was the echo of a thousand stories.

  And when the jungle sighed again, reborn through ash and memory, it did so in his name.

  Author's Note:

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