The War Room Briefing
The war room of the Halloween Banner wasn't grand. It wasn't polished or ceremonial. It was carved half into the cliff face and half into whatever madness the previous squad captain had called "architecture."
Runes pulsed faintly on every wall, some broken, some bleeding light, others humming like bees trapped behind stone. A long oval table sat in the middle, warped at one end where lightning had once struck it. Or so Kael claimed.
Ashen sat near the far edge, hands in his lap. The black pendant hung silent beneath his shirt, but he could feel its quiet weight — always humming, like a second heartbeat.
Drael stood at the head of the table, one hand resting on a scroll, the other curled around a steaming mug of leafbrew.
"A request has come in," he said, voice as calm as always. "From Embergrove. Northern border. Livestock disappearing. Magical flares seen in the woods."
Lina raised an eyebrow. "You sure it's not some bored hedge witch lighting lanterns?"
"Doubtful," Fen said. "Purple flares suggest old-world magic. Warding remnants. Maybe unstable."
Kael stretched, lightning cracking around his fingertips. "We chasing fire ghosts now? Finally. Something fun."
"It's a Class-C anomaly," Drael said. "Nothing apocalyptic. But strange enough they sent for us."
Brill leaned forward, hood half-shadowing his eyes. "How charming. A village on the edge of forgetting calling on the edge of command."
Ashen glanced around, still unsure when to speak.
Drael's gaze flicked to him. "Ashen, you're coming. You observe. That's it."
Ashen nodded. "Understood."
"Don't interfere unless I say so," Drael continued. "But if the pendant reacts... let me know."
Umbra, Tess's doll, chose that moment to tilt its head toward Ashen and grin.
Kael rolled his eyes. "Creepy little thing."
Tess didn't blink. "She likes him."
"Well," Kael said. "That's a first."
Drael drained his cup. "We leave in one hour. Light gear only. This isn't a raid—it's a read."
Lina stood and cracked her knuckles. "Let's go see what's burning."
SECTION II – The Journey North
The road north twisted through frost-edged woods and silent stone bridges. The squad moved in a loose formation, half on foot, half aboard a floating cart that creaked like it disapproved of all passengers equally.
Ashen walked beside Lina. Her breath curled in front of her, and ice gathered faintly on the bracers of her artifact, Crysalune.
"You don't talk much," she said after a long stretch of silence.
Ashen glanced sideways. "Still getting used to being somewhere people listen."
"Fair. But you better learn fast. Kael never shuts up."
As if summoned, Kael appeared on the edge of the cart, balancing on the rail with a crackle of lightning. "I heard my name! Were you praising me, mocking me, or invoking me for good luck?"
"Option four," Lina muttered. "Hoping you fall."
Kael grinned and leapt off, landing beside them with a hum of residual energy. "Ashen, you ever been on a mission before?"
"This is my first."
"Ah. A true virgin flame." He slapped Ashen lightly on the back. "Don't worry. Nothing wakes you up like nearly dying next to friends."
"Comforting," Ashen said dryly.
Brill walked a little behind, flipping a silver coin between his fingers. His voice was soft. "There's no glory in routine work, but there is insight. How we respond to dull problems reveals more than war."
Kael pointed at Brill. "And that's what happens when you drink dreamleaf tea before sunrise."
Further ahead, Fen crouched near a crooked tree, inspecting bark with a small glass lens. Tess stood near him, murmuring to Umbra, who was quietly picking petals off a dead flower.
After a while, Fen walked back and handed Ashen a folded leaf. "Eat it. Calms the body, clears the thoughts."
Ashen raised an eyebrow. "Mushrooms?"
"Not yet," Fen said cryptically.
Ashen bit down. Bitter, earthy. Surprisingly warm.
By midday, the forest opened into a field of waving silvergrass, and just beyond it, a village slept against the horizon — Embergrove.
"Place looks like it forgot how to wake up," Kael said.
Drael, from the front, simply said, "Then we remind it."
The Village of Embergrove
The village sat low and narrow, tucked into the shadow of a wooded ridge. Embergrove was old — older than the paved roads that led to it — and its buildings leaned as if time had gently nudged them off-center.
The villagers gathered at the edge as the squad approached. None carried weapons, but none smiled either.
Drael raised a hand in greeting. "Captain Drael Veyne. Halloween Banner. You requested an investigation."
A stout man with gray at his temples stepped forward. "Mayor Cressen. We did send for help… though we weren't expectin' your lot."
Kael muttered under his breath, "Nice to feel wanted."
"Reports said livestock vanished," Drael said calmly. "And flares in the woods?"
"Aye. Purple fire. Flickers just past the trees at night. No noise. No heat. And sometimes... our animals just stop being there. Pens open, locks untouched."
Tess looked toward the treeline. Umbra blinked without being touched.
"Show us," Drael said.
They spent the afternoon walking the fields and fences. Fen knelt by disturbed earth, running black-stained fingers through dry grass. Brill passed a mirror over a feeding trough, watching for magical echoes. Lina examined the scorched tips of fence posts.
Kael, meanwhile, tried charming answers out of the local teens. "You ever try tossing salt at the flares? Sometimes ghosts hate seasoning."
Ashen stuck close to Drael, asking nothing, just absorbing how the others worked.
The mayor kept glancing at the pendant on Ashen's chest. "He's the one they chose?" he whispered to Drael.
"They didn't choose him," Drael said. "The pendant did."
"Same difference to us, Captain. That thing carries silence around it."
"Then be quiet and let him listen."
By sundown, the squad regrouped in the village's modest tavern. Lina spread a rough map of the area across a table.
"The fires keep forming here," she said, tapping the northern grove. "Dead zone. Old magic. No sound, no wildlife."
"Could be leftover wards," Brill said. "Rural settlements used to hire hedge mages for quick protections. Poorly maintained magic becomes unpredictable."
"Or it could be the scarecrows," Kael said, chewing on a straw. "They've got five. Only three stand straight. One's buried in mushrooms."
Fen perked up. "Where?"
Kael blinked. "Uh. East field."
"I'll check it before nightfall."
Drael looked around the table. "Be ready. We watch tonight. Ashen stays with me."
Ashen didn't speak, but inside, something itched — like the pendant knew more than it was letting on.
Outside, the forest rustled as dusk dropped its weight.
The Night of the Fires
Night fell heavy and fast.
The squad was stationed on the edge of the northern grove, where grass gave way to the dense thicket. Trees stood in uneven rows, gnarled and bristling with black moss.
Ashen stood beside Drael, his cloak brushing dead leaves. The others spread out through the field, taking posts at watchpoints agreed upon during supper. The pendant on Ashen's chest pulsed once — faint, like breath through frost.
Then the fires appeared.
Purple flares ignited in midair, flickering like torn cloth lit from within. No heat. No sound.
Kael whooped and dashed toward them with Lina not far behind, ice glinting at her wrists.
Brill vanished into a standing mirror propped against a tree, while Tess's shadow bent the wrong way and peeled into the grove.
"Stay with me," Drael said to Ashen.
But Ashen's feet moved before he heard the words.
The pendant surged — not like a warning, but like recognition.
He stepped into the trees, leaves crunching beneath his boots. He felt pulled, not physically, but through a string of knowing — as if his magic, or the pendant's, had already seen what he needed to see.
A clearing opened ahead. In the center stood a scarecrow.
It was taller than the rest, limbs made of warped timber and rusted nails, stuffed with rot-colored straw. It turned without turning — its stitched burlap head simply rotated to face Ashen.
Its eyes flickered violet.
It lunged.
Ashen raised his hand too slow, staggered, stumbled—
The gauntlet formed on instinct.
A bloom of black folded over his arm, catching the scarecrow's jagged strike. The impact sent tremors through his bones, but the gauntlet absorbed the magic — not violently, but like soil drinking rain.
The scarecrow twitched, hissed, and collapsed into a pile of limp sticks.
Ashen breathed, eyes wide, chest rising fast.
Behind him, boots crunched.
Drael appeared, sword sheathed, unreadable as ever.
"I said stay close," he said.
"I felt it," Ashen replied.
Drael looked at the broken ward-creature. "It was drawn to you. Or you to it."
Ashen didn't respond.
Drael finally nodded once. "You're not ready yet. But the pendant might be."
He turned. "Let's go."
Ashen followed, gauntlet fading back into his skin like it had never been there at all.
The woods were quiet again. Too quiet.
Aftermath and Understanding
Dawn broke in silence.
A soft mist rolled over the Embergrove fields, curling through fences and along the edges of charred grass. Birds, long absent, began to call again — short, cautious notes as if testing whether the night had truly ended.
The squad regrouped in the village square, subdued but satisfied.
Brill emerged from a mirror in the mayor's barn, shaking dust from his cloak. "No new flares overnight. The field is quiet."
"Wards were active," Fen added. "But corrupted. Protection magic abandoned too long turns aimless. It created sentinels — scarecrows — and fed on ambient tension."
"Residual fear," Lina said. "Classic."
Kael leaned on a post. "So it wasn't ghosts or forest spirits. Just lazy magic gone wrong."
"Even bad magic needs intention," Tess said, stroking Umbra's porcelain cheek.
Drael nodded to the mayor. "Your land's safe again. If it flares up, call us."
Mayor Cressen wrung his cap in both hands. "That boy… Ashen. He stopped the one in the grove?"
Drael didn't answer immediately. Then: "He stood his ground."
Ashen stood off to the side, half-listening. His gauntlet had vanished hours ago, but the memory of it was fresh — its weight, its cold precision.
Lina stepped beside him, holding out an apple covered in faint frost.
"You didn't flinch," she said.
"I did," Ashen admitted.
"Well, not enough to die. That's worth something."
He took the apple. "Thanks."
"Don't let it go to your head, rookie."
Kael appeared with his usual grin. "I give it three more missions before he starts brooding dramatically in moonlight."
Ashen smiled — small, but real.
Return to Base
The trip home began in the pale stillness of early light, the sky blushing with quiet gold. The squad didn't rush. Success had come, but it was quiet — the kind measured in calm, not celebration.
Ashen rode in the back of the enchanted cart, leaning against his pack. The pendant was cold against his chest again. It hadn't spoken, hadn't pulsed, hadn't stirred. But it didn't feel dormant. Just... watchful.
Kael sat across from him, retelling the scarecrow battle for the fifth time. "And then Ashen just stands there, right? All cloaked and haunted and mysterious, and BAM — the magic just dies. Drops. Gone. Like a ghost folding in on itself."
Brill chuckled. "You've embellished that part twice already. In the last version, there were two scarecrows."
"I stand by the artistic license."
Lina rolled her eyes. "You should stand by your own reflections. They're less dramatic."
Ashen gave a small shake of his head, but said nothing.
Fen sat cross-legged, rubbing spores into a strip of paper. "You held the scarecrow's charge. Dampened its nature."
"I didn't know I could," Ashen said.
"Magic doesn't care what you know. Just what you do."
Tess murmured softly to Umbra. The doll tilted its head toward Ashen. "She says the forest watched you walk in and walk out. That's unusual."
Ashen met Umbra's gaze without flinching. "I felt it. But I didn't know what it meant."
Drael, riding ahead on foot, called back. "You don't need to understand everything yet. You only need to stay alive long enough to learn."
As the cart crested the hill leading to their cliffside manor, the crooked banner swayed above the gate. Lanterns inside lit themselves as they approached, casting long flickering shadows across the warped stone.
Back inside, the manor smelled faintly of tea and chalk. Books still floated where Brill had left them, and the fire in the hearth sparked into life of its own accord.
Ashen carried his pack to his room, set it down, then stood for a long time in front of the mirror. His reflection looked older than before the mission. Tired — but not broken.
Behind him, something shimmered. He turned quickly.
Just the gauntlet, forming for a second on his arm — then fading like a breath in fog.
He exhaled. "I'm still here."
And the pendant, just once, pulsed in reply.