The steam from the stew swirled in heavy, fatty ribbons through Sister Ghoula’s small room. The scent of cloves and slow-cooked meat was so thick it completely smothered the suffocating stench of the city outside for a moment. Everyone sat with their heads bowed over their plates, the only sound being the metallic scrape of spoons against earthenware. But outside the thick walls, the world was in labor. The muffled clamor of tens of thousands of throats, the wild rattling of wooden carts over uneven cobblestones, and the distant, rhythmic hammering pierced through the joints of the house like an approaching storm.
Sister Ghoula folded her wrinkled hands over the edge of the table and looked around the circle with a gaze full of maternal earnestness. “Look, children, this festival is more than just a party. It is about the sacred balance between us and the shadows of those who have gone before us. It is the only night when the veil between worlds becomes paper-thin and we honor those who…”
Silarias looked at her very dryly, his spoon halfway to his mouth, a glistening drop of sauce hanging from the rim. “Yeah, really… Buy one?”
Nyx, who sat beside him eating her plate clean with military precision, immediately completed him without shifting her icy gaze. “Get one free?”
The room fell dead silent for a heartbeat. Then, Sister Ghoula burst into an unexpected, almost cute little laugh, her eyes disappearing into a web of cheerful wrinkles. She waved away the mockery with a light gesture, as if long accustomed to the audacity of youth. “Ah, that money is also a form of balance, even the dead know that truth.” Her smile faded instantly, however, when she looked at the ticking clock on the wall. “But the bitter reality is that we are coming up short. The hourglass is running empty, and the city is far from ready for what must happen tonight.”
As if on an invisible command, the bowls and plates were set on the wooden table with a dull thud. The group stood up as one, their chairs scraping across the floor. “Thank you, Ghoula. We have to help. Now.”
Balamore stared through the window at the swirling anthill in the square and swallowed the lump in his throat. “But how in God’s name do we manage that? There are too many of them. We’ll be swallowed alive by that mass if we just run out there.”
Nicola leaned toward Silarias. His lips barely moved as he pressed words into the ear of the Nobody that were lost to the rest of the room in the swelling clamor from outside. He straightened back up, his spine straight as a spear and his gaze razor-sharp. “From what I see, there are two major factions down there. That means the city is split in two for all that work. If we make two groups, each supporting one of those sides, we’ll reach the goal with ease.”
A raw cheer rose from the group, but Silarias remained motionless, staring intensely at Nicola, searching for the true core of the boy. “You and I will form the groups. I entrust half of this family to you.”
Nicola began to literally tingle. It wasn’t a shiver of fear, but a brutal, subcutaneous electrical tension that made his hair stand on end and caused the air around him to crackle. Blue sparks danced like madmen between his fingertips. His voice sounded powerful, like a bell announcing a new era. “My words were that you have my loyalty, and my words are carved in eternity, OR I AM NO VON EATHERHART? bitter end!”
Without waiting for a command, Nicola took control. He threw his mighty arms around Balamore and Izamaru with an authority that left no room for doubt. “You two with me. Come, come. You still have much to explain to me about how things work here.”
With Blitz slipping along like a shadow in his wake, Ren running hard right at his side looking up like a little brother trying to match a giant, and Lyn and Apollo covering the flanks like birds of prey, Nicola strode toward the side of the city where a dominant lady directed the crowd with a firm hand. Just before the mass swallowed him up, he threw one last, sly wink at Silarias.
Miki watched the departing group with narrowed eyes and squeezed her fingers tightly around Silarias’s sleeve, hiding behind his arm like a little kid seeking cover from a crowd. “Why is Master Nicola acting so strange today? I don’t trust that look in his eyes.”
Silarias laughed inwardly, a deep sound that vibrated in his chest, and placed a heavy hand on her head, messing up her hair. “Nothing, nothing, all in good time, Miki. Today, for the first time, he felt who he really is. People act like that sometimes when that happens.”
The remaining formation, Silarias, Nyx, Aurelius, Jane, Cilla, and Miki, turned toward the other side of the square. There stood a fellow who was the definition of noise and violence. Broad shoulders, with a chest like an anvil, he shouted orders to the crowd. When his gaze fell upon the approaching strangers, his anger turned into pure, raw sensation.
“Visitors! Haha! That’s something that prude next door wouldn’t get in a thousand years!” He balled his fists and slammed them together, causing a series of bright explosions that launched him a meter into the air like a rocket. He landed with a thud that cracked the cobblestones and grinned so wide his teeth shone in the torchlight. “I am General Gunpowder the First, at your service! The undisputed owner of this piece of land! Have you come to watch us turn this place upside down for the festival?!”
Silarias looked at him with a grin that matched the general’s. “Ehh, no…”
He wanted to speak, but Miki, who was nearly crushing Nyx’s hand and hiding half her face behind Nyx's coat like a tiny toddler, stepped forward with impossible courage. Her small voice cut through the roaring. “Ehh, we’ve come to help too. And watch. And eat. Mostly eat!”
The general burst into a laugh that sounded like the rolling of thunder, the sudden shockwave of his voice physically blowing Miki's hair back and making her squeak and duck completely behind Nyx. It was blindingly obvious that this small, cheeky kid had completely shattered the armor plate around his heart. “Oh ho, is that so, little squirt? Well, what a fire hides in such a big princess!” He reached out and gave her a playful but firm poke in her side, the sheer force of his massive finger sending the little girl stumbling backward into Nyx's legs where she clung on tight.
General Gunpowder threw his heavy arms into the air, pointing to the chaos dominating the square, as the air around them grew thick with the approaching deadline. He looked Silarias straight in the eye, his gaze now dead serious beneath that wild mane of hair.
“Listen close, Goldilocks, because the hourglass waits for no one!” he roared over the noise of rattling carts. “That prude across the way thinks she can do it faster, but we’re going to show her what real pace is. We have five hours before the first lantern must burn, otherwise the shadows will eat us alive at the gate!”
He began firing off tasks like bullets from a machine gun. “First, those damn constructions at the north side! The support beams of the main stages weigh tons and those lazy dogs over there can’t get them up. I need brute strength, someone who can lift a whole building without blinking!” Silarias cast a glance at Aurelius, who was already balling his fists and feeling his muscles tense at the mention of the challenge. The General thundered on, his voice cracking with adrenaline. “And then the logistics! The fuel for the ceremonial fires must be distributed across the entire line, accurate to the millimeter, otherwise the whole thing explodes in our faces when we hold the torch to it. I need precision, people who can switch faster than light and make no mistakes under pressure!”
Jane and Cilla exchanged a brief, telling look; their specialty was exactly this kind of razor-sharp coordination. Gunpowder slapped his chest with his flat hand, sounding like a hollow drum. “And the most important… the energy barriers. The gates must be blessed with a pure power that carries both the light of day and the depth of night. Without that balance, the walls fall as soon as the sun sets.”
As the General’s words rolled off his lips, Silarias felt a strange calm wash over him. He looked at Nyx, who stood silent and unyielding beside him like a statue of moonlight. He saw the pattern crystal clear now. Every task Gunpowder mentioned, every seemingly impossible obstacle, was a specific lock waiting for their intervention. Whether by chance or fate, their group was the only key that fit exactly into the complex gaps in this city’s defense.
“Five hours, General?” Silarias asked, as a confident grin slowly spread across his face. “Make it three. We have a festival to save, and we haven’t even eaten what Miki was promised.”
Gunpowder burst into that booming laugh again, making the cobblestones tremble. “That’s the spirit! To work then, before I change my mind and use you as a lamppost yourself!” The battle against the clock hadn’t just begun; the whole world suddenly seemed to spin faster as the group dispersed to make the General’s impossible demands a reality. Every hour counts, every minute is a fight, and the Day of the Dead waits for no one.
Aurelius thundered across the square like a living battering ram, while the heavy oak beams creaked above his head. With brute primal force, he slammed the foundations into place, a rhythm that made the cobblestones vibrate. Jane and Cilla moved in a deadly blur of efficiency between the scaffolding, their commands razor-sharp and without mercy. It was a symphony of steel, sweat, and adrenaline; a high-speed transformation of the square that left the locals staring with open mouths.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the district, the atmosphere was entirely different.
Nicola strode through the busy alleys with Balamore and Izamaru still tucked firmly under his muscular arms, as if he were carrying a pair of precious relics to safety. Lyn and Apollo followed effortlessly in his wake, while Ren was nearly breathless, his small legs pumping frantically as he sprinted to keep up with the Von Eatherhart’s enormous strides, looking like a little kid trying not to lose his older brother in a crowded market.
Nicola looked down at Izamaru, whose feet dangled somewhere at hip height in the air. “Tell me, little prophet,” Nicola spoke with a voice trembling with curiosity. “How is it that you all have an answer for everything? You talk about the world as if you have the blueprints for it in your pocket. How do you know all this?”
Izamaru remained unfazed despite the wild ride under Nicola’s arm. “Our tribe carries the burden of seeing, Master Nicola. Our elders received visions that transcend time itself. They spoke with the Gods in the deep sleep of the world, and those beings taught them everything. The patterns of the forces, the language of the elements… we are the keepers of knowledge, so that the light does not die when the great shadow falls.”
Nicola wanted to respond, but his words died in his throat as they entered the eastern district. Here, there was no noise or explosions, but a chilling, almost poetic order.
In the center of a marble terrace stood a woman who dominated the entire environment with nothing more than her presence. She was tall and clad in silk robes that flowed like flames at sunset. Every movement she made was steeped in royal grace, an elegance so perfect it felt almost supernatural. This was General Pyronia, the true mistress of elegance.
She was busy instructing her officers with small, precise hand gestures. Suddenly, she stopped. She turned her head slowly, her eyes sparkling like polished gemstones, and her gaze fell directly on little Ren who was still panting and wiping sweat from his forehead.
With a movement reminiscent of a falling leaf, she glided toward him. Before the boy could even blink, she scooped him right up into her arms, lifting him high against her silk robes like an affectionate aunt holding a toddler. “Ohhh wow… what a big guy we have here,” she whispered, her voice like liquid honey, playfully pinching his cheek while Ren turned bright red and dangled helplessly in her grasp. She set him down gently, giving his head a fond pat, and let her gaze wander over the rest of the group, a mysterious smile on her lips.
“So… visitors. What a rare, refined pleasure,” she spoke, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “I am Pyronia, the one who guards the style and class in this city. This is in stark contrast to that unpolished barbarian next door. That poor soul will likely never receive visitors worth the effort, but you… you carry a scent with you that I haven’t smelled in centuries.”
She took a step closer to Nicola, her eyes piercing into his, as the air around them suddenly began to vibrate with a hidden tension.
“I hope you are ready for what this festival truly asks of you,” she said softly, her voice now laden with an ominous undertone. “Because the price for my help cannot be expressed in gold, and time… time is almost up.”
She turned halfway toward the horizon, where the first dark clouds were gathering over the city, and let a silence fall that weighed heavier than the stone walls around them.
The air in the eastern district was heavy with a perfume reminiscent of burnt sandalwood and old books. Pyronia’s eyes remained fixed on Nicola, who still felt that brute, blue electrical tension dancing around his fists.
“Mr. Von Eatherhart,” she spoke, and the way she pronounced his name made the hair on Nicola’s neck stand up; she knew the names of the world’s greats without needing an introduction. “You carry the lightning of a fallen empire in your blood. But here in Cinderpulse, even the thunder bows to tradition.”
She pointed with a graceful, elongated brush toward the towering lanterns flanking the square. “The preparations here require no brute force, but the geometry of the soul. The ceremonial seals on the walls must be drawn with extreme precision. One tremor, one wrong line, and the protection that must shield us from the shadows will crack like thin ice.”
She looked at Lyn and Apollo. “You two… I see the sharpness of birds of prey in your movements. You will apply the seals at the highest points. No mistakes. No hesitation.”
Nicola finally set Balamore and Izamaru down, his face a mask of iron discipline. “We aren’t here for the style, General. We are here for results. What do you want me to do?”
Pyronia let out an icy laugh. “You, Mr. Lightning Conductor, are the battery. The seals need a spark pure enough to split the night. But be warned: the city always asks a toll. While that barbarian Gunpowder makes his people sweat, I make mine bleed for perfection.”
The atmosphere in the city was now completely split. On one side, the brute violence, the shouting, and the explosions of General Gunpowder and Silarias’s group, where Aurelius and the others worked like possessed souls. On the other side, the eerie, silent perfection of Pyronia and Nicola’s group, where every movement was a dance on the edge of the abyss. The countdown continued, and the shadows of Cinderpulse City grew longer with every passing second.