Not a disease but a cascading failure — the first wave of Flare-Touched eruptions during the early Empire, when botched Awakenings ignited chain-reactions across entire districts, scarring Solhrein and hardening the Empire's heresy laws forever.
In the second century of the Empire, as Mandatory Awakening scaled from military rite to universal decree, a catastrophic truth emerged: the Awakening ritual was never designed for mass application. One in every hundred citizens underwent a "flare" — their infused solar magic surging beyond containment in a blinding, uncontrolled detonation. And flares were contagious. A single flare-victim erupting near other Awakened could trigger sympathetic surges, ripping through crowded districts like wildfire through dry grain.\n\nThe worst incident — the Solhrein Cascade — leveled three city wards in a single night. The Crown-Legions sealed the district; the Radiant Order "purified" the survivors. From the ashes came the dawn-courts, the Flare-Touched designation, and the iron-clad heresy laws that define Imperial justice to this day.\n\nThe plague never truly ended. Flare-Touched eruptions remain a constant, low-level terror — and every one feeds the Blight, which grows fatter on the spilled light. The Embergrove Compact argues the plague proves the Awakening is a weapon aimed at its own people. The Order argues it proves vigilance can never relax. The Consortium quietly profits, selling suppressants to the terrified.