The penthouse of the Ghost Lantern Council was situated on a high rise building on Singapore’s downtown —all the rooms were wrapped in glass and silent enchantments. From here, one could see the city stretching into the haze: Marina Bay’s silver gleam, the soft curves of Bukit Timah’s green ridges, and the pulse of traffic far below. But none of it mattered tonight.

  Not when the city’s heart had been ripped open.

  The living room glowed dimly with ambient enchantments, the lamps casting deep red and amber hues across silk-draped walls and rune-etched floors. Scrolls lined with ancestral ink whispered protection in a dozen dead tongues. A steady current of magic hummed beneath the marble, as though the very bones of the building braced for war.

  Marcus Lin stood at the head of the Ghost Lantern’s long mahogany council table, silent. The room was filled with elders and captains, their expressions taut with barely restrained grief. The air was thick—not just with incense and rage, but with something older. Something ancestral. Grieving spirits had begun to stir.

  Outside, lightning flashed over the skyline, casting the glass panels into a shifting mirror of stormlight.

  Marcus was young by council standards—barely thirty—but he stood tall, commanding, dressed in ceremonial white mourning clothes embroidered with silver thread. The sharp lines of his face were cut into stark relief beneath the pendant glow of a hovering sconce, and his eyes burned with an intensity that dared anyone to question him.

  He had not spoken since entering the room. Not until now.

  "My father believed in peace," Marcus said, his voice breaking the silence like the first drumbeat of a funeral march.

  Every whisper died instantly. All eyes turned to him.

  "He believed in negotiation. In offering second chances. In seeing the good even in those who trafficked in darkness." His gaze swept the table, lingering on each face. "He taught us that strength wasn’t just about power—but about restraint. Wisdom. Compassion."

  A pause.

  Then: “And look where it brought him.”

  The words dropped like stones. No one spoke.

  Marcus stepped away from the head of the table, pacing slowly, each step measured.

  “My father didn’t fall in battle. He wasn’t slain in a duel. He was murdered in ritual—bled dry by a cult of leeches who call themselves the Scarlet Frangipani. They didn’t just kill him.”

  He stopped. His hands clenched into fists.

  “They devoured his soul. We need to do something. I suggest we avenge him by targeting Michelle Teo with a minor daemon spirit. The daemon would find Michelle and kill her.”

  Everyone stood in silence. The Ghost Lanterns had a ritual to summon entities across the Pale Curtain. It was a secret and not to be used lightly.

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  An elder at the far end of the table—Mei Hua, one of the oldest mystics among them, known for her calm and careful words—spoke softly.

  “Marcus. Breaching the Pale Curtain are not to be called lightly. Your father would have—”

  “—cautioned patience?” Marcus snapped, turning on her. His voice wasn’t raised, but it cut sharper than any blade. “Then where is he now, Mei Hua? Even with your best powers, can you find his spirit. No. You can’t. Because he’s gone. The Scarlet Frangipani devoured his soul even.”

  Mei Hua’s gaze dropped. She did not answer.

  Marcus turned back to the others. “They desecrated a founding elder. They’ve declared war.”

  Another elder—Ho Jin, one of the more militant warpriests—nodded grimly. “Their signature was left behind. A blossom burned into the altar. That alone demands blood.”

  A quiet murmur passed around the room. No one disagreed.

  Marcus returned to the head of the table. He placed both hands on its polished surface, the runes etched into his sleeves pulsing in faint sympathy.

  “From this moment forward, the Ghost Lanterns will no longer wait behind veils. We will not allow another of ours to be fed to their rituals. Every Frangipani who steps into our territory will be marked. Hunted.”

  Someone slammed a palm to the table in approval.

  Marcus’s voice deepened. “And any who shield them—be they merchant, mystic, or ministry—will find themselves cast into the dark with them.”

  Another elder spoke, more cautiously. “This will bring retaliation. Blood on both sides. We were originally protectors. Guardians of memory, not hunters of the living.”

  Marcus nodded. “And we will remain guardians. But guardians don’t sit idle while tombs are violated and souls are stolen. We will protect our own. We will avenge them.”

  A flare of energy sparked along the table’s edge. It wasn’t magic—just emotion, rising, surging, uniting.

  Marcus straightened fully, his mourning robes billowing slightly in the wind from the open balcony door behind him. His silhouette stood framed against the electric city beyond, his voice low and final.

  “Send word to our allies. We will strike first. They lit the fire.”

  He turned, eyes gleaming.

  “Now we become the flame.”

  The room rose in unified response— the elders already starting the ritual.

  Mei Hua moved to Marcus.

  “If you are sure, we will bring out the foci for the summoning. Bukit Brown would be suitable. Have you decided what you want to call forth?”

  Marcus nodded.

  And as he walked from the council chamber into the private shadows of the hallway, one last phrase echoed behind him like prophecy:

  “Tonight, the dead are watching. Let’s show the Frangipanis what we’ll do with the dead”