The Echoes of Ash

Newhaven District, Western Celestria

The smoke rose in coiling tendrils, dark against the amber sky. Silas Ward’s boots crunched over glass and molten debris as he stepped into what remained of Sunspire Daycare. The world moved in jagged snapshots—burned walls, melted furniture, a tiny lunchbox charred around the edges. He didn’t feel the heat. He didn’t feel anything.

In his arms, Lily’s small body hung limp, still cradling Mr. Snuffles. Her curls were matted with soot, her cheek streaked with ash like war paint. She had been singing just that morning, a silly tune about rocket squirrels and chocolate planets. He wrapped her in his coat, not to protect her from the cold, but to hide her from the world that had taken her life.

All around him, the same grim procession unfolded: mothers and fathers on trembling legs, cradling scorched bundles that had been children an hour ago. There was no screaming, no sobbing. Just silence, as if the air itself was too heavy to carry grief.

Silas’s eyes locked onto the banner still fluttering above the wreckage—black fabric scorched at the edges, emblazoned with a coiled serpent wrapped around a silver dagger. His breath caught.

The insignia of Shadow Requiem.

His past wasn’t just knocking. It had kicked the door down.

The Insignia

It had been retired—buried with the classified files and whispered regrets of the Ashfall Conflict. Only six people alive had ever worn it. And only those six could understand the implications of it being here.

The dagger: loyalty turned inward.

The serpent: power hidden until it strikes.

The circle around them both: no escape.

It hadn’t survived the fire by accident. It had been deliberately seared into the wall—etched by someone who knew exactly what they were doing. A message in flame.

And then, beneath the symbol etched into the rubble by plasma fire, a message blinked to life.

Encrypted—Shadow Requiem Protocol 13

Access: SCARAB-CLASS LEVEL ONLY

Silas knelt beside the scorched metal where the message pulsed. With a trembling hand, he activated the neural implant buried behind his ear. The moment his bio-signal connected, the message unraveled in ultraviolet code only their squad could decipher.

"They’ve awakened the ghost. Five days. Come home."

That was all. No names. No sender. No coordinates. And yet, every member of Shadow Requiem would know where to go.

The Summoning

1. Elena Voss – Codename: Circuit

Location: Luminara Lower Spire, Tech Bazaar District

Elena stood hunched over a holo-terminal in a cramped repair booth, eyes scanning a faulty technomancer relay. Her cybernetic arm buzzed with energy as she typed commands faster than the screen could register. Around her, the Tech Bazaar glowed in hues of electric blue and violet, filled with merchants selling synthetic nerves and black-market arcane chips.

She was humming to herself, sipping a cup of synth-chai, enjoying the rhythm of problem-solving.

When the message hit her neural interface, she froze mid-keystroke. The encrypted glyphs pulsed only once before vanishing.

She turned off the terminal without a word. “Close shop,” she told the teen apprentice beside her.

“But Circuit, you’ve got that mod for—”

“I said close it.”

She reached under the counter, pulled out a satchel lined with disruptor grenades and hacking nodes, and vanished into the neon mist.

2. Mason Rourke – Codename: Bastion

Location: The Glacial Reaches, North Border Post

Mason was rebuilding a perimeter fence, his earth-forged gauntlets glowing faintly in the snow. Around him, the outpost buzzed with quiet routine—nomads trading frost-root, drones skimming over the tundra.

When the glyphs etched themselves into the frost on his armor, he stared.

Not here. Not now.

He stripped off his gloves, said nothing to the guards watching him, and walked into the wind. Behind him, snow swallowed his footprints like the past consuming a ghost.

3. Kai Thorne – Codename: Healer’s Mark

Location: Verdant Veil, East Celestria

Kai was mid-surgery, vines curling from his fingers into a boy’s shattered leg, bone knitting beneath bioluminescent light. A healer-priest from the Veil hovered behind him, murmuring chants of restoration.

When the glyphs blossomed like fireflies across his patient’s skin, Kai went pale. “He’s stable,” he said, voice trembling.

“But the rites—”

“No time.”

He packed his satchel with salves, spores, and a vial of his own blood. Then he disappeared into the trees.

4. Jenna Vale – Codename: Wraith

Location: Emberfall, Fire Clans Border

Jenna crouched on a rooftop watching a gang lord make deals over fire-sap. Her shadow-blade rested on her thigh, whispering to her in the language only wielders of Voidflame understood.

She had spent the last few months working as a freelance bounty hunter, keeping her head down.

The glyphs appeared in her shadow.

She vanished before the gang lord’s second breath.

5. Aerin Skye – Codename: Howl

Location: Black Sands Outskirts

Aerin was halfway through tracking a band of smugglers moving dragon bone relics through a radioactive trench. Her hawk familiar screeched overhead, wings tipped with light.

When the message carved itself into the sand at her feet, she stood for a moment, eyes closed, whispering a prayer to the ancestors Silas taught her to believe in.

“Time to go home,” she muttered.

The Reunion: Silas’s Garage

They arrived within hours of each other. Not one of them asked how the others had known to come. Shadow Requiem didn’t ask questions like that.

The garage smelled of burnt oil and grief. Silas sat at the far end, Lily’s body still wrapped in his coat, resting on the workbench where he once taught her to fix gravity coils.

Jenna was the first to kneel beside her, pressing her forehead to the child’s. “She drew me as a dragon once,” she whispered.

Elena stood silently, one hand over her heart. Kai took Silas’s hand in his. “You shouldn’t have had to bury her.”

Mason said nothing. He simply stood watch by the door, eyes scanning the street.

Aerin lit incense, its purple smoke curling into the air like the prayers they used to say before missions. “She deserved to fly,” she said.

Silas raised his head. His eyes were red, not just from grief, but from the storm simmering beneath his skin.

“They’re back,” he growled. “And they used our symbol to tell me who did this.”

“The Serpent’s Fang?” Jenna asked. “We wiped them out.”

“Or thought we did,” Mason said. “But we didn’t burn the roots. Just the heads.”

“They left a trace,” Elena said, projecting the message onto the garage wall. It spiraled into a map of Celestria, a dozen blinking coordinates converging on one point: the Ashfall Wastes.

“Where it all started,” Aerin murmured.

Silas walked to a hidden compartment in the garage floor and pulled out a box none of them had seen in three years. Inside: six armbands bearing the coiled serpent and dagger. Shadow Requiem.

“We swore we were done,” Kai said, his voice uncertain.

“We are,” Silas replied. “This isn’t about a war. It’s about her. Someone made a choice to send a message through my daughter.”

He turned, his voice a blade:

“We answer it with fire.”

One by one, they strapped the bands to their arms.

Shadow Requiem had returned.

To be continued...

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***