Chapter 21: Ashes in the Wake
The threat came in the dead of night.
No warning.
No sound.
Just a single glowing symbol on the floor of Aria's penthouse—seared into the marble like a brand. A twisted rune of flame and shadow. Familiar and haunting.
Aria's pulse slammed into her throat.
Damien was at her side in seconds, weapon drawn. "That wasn't there five minutes ago."
"I know," Aria whispered. "Because whoever left it… wanted me to see it now."
She knelt down. Touched the scorched edge.
A pulse of magic raced up her spine. Cold. Ancient. Hollow-born.
But not pure Hollow.
Something else.
Something worse.
Her datapad lit up with a single new message:
"Return the girl. Or watch Vantier burn. You have three days."
— Cinder
Aria stared at the name, her blood running cold.
Cinder.
It wasn't possible.
He'd been declared dead two years ago — burned in a lab fire he himself had triggered. Cinder was once her father's protégé, a bio-augmented sorcerer obsessed with weaponizing Hollow flame.
He had been brilliant. And monstrous.
And now… he was back.
Kestrel's voice crackled through the earpiece. "We've traced a glyph surge matching the signature on your floor. It came from an old communications node outside District 9. No living heat signatures. Just ambient flame."
"Cinder," Aria said.
Damien swore under his breath.
Echo stepped into the room, bleary-eyed from sleep, the hem of her blanket trailing behind her like a ghost.
She saw the rune.
Froze.
Then whispered, "He used to watch me through the glass. Said I wasn't his first success. Just the one that survived."
Aria's heart clenched. "You knew him?"
Echo nodded slowly. "He said I was the fire they could never hold. That one day… I'd burn for him."
They immediately locked down the Tower.
Kestrel's agents swept every floor.
Damien doubled the guards around the penthouse.
But the threat wasn't just physical — it was psychological. Aria knew that. Cinder was a master manipulator. He didn't just want Echo.
He wanted her to choose to give Echo up.
That was the game.
And the clock was ticking.
At 3:07 a.m., another message came.
This time… it wasn't digital.
A flame appeared in the center of Aria's private war room — a small flickering image projected from a pocket dimension, laced with illusion magic and Voidlight tech.
And within it, a man stood smiling.
Red hair. Pale skin. Gold-rimmed glasses cracked down the middle. One side of his face burned away and fused with metal.
Cinder.
"Aria Vantier," he said, voice slick and amused. "Still so righteous. Still holding the world by the throat and pretending it's mercy."
She said nothing.
He tilted his head.
"Echo is an anomaly. A failed prototype. She doesn't belong in your world."
"She belongs wherever she chooses," Aria snapped.
Cinder's smile thinned. "You can't protect her. Not from me. Not from the fire in her blood. You don't even know what she is."
"I know enough."
He chuckled.
"Oh no, dear. You don't."
The flame flared.
Images filled the room: Blueprints. Blood tests. Echo's DNA strand — glowing with a double helix threaded by something ancient.
Something not human.
"You thought she was a girl. But she's a gate."
"The Hollow didn't create her. They escaped through her."
Aria's eyes widened.
"No," she whispered.
"Yes," Cinder said. "She's the breach. The first living tear between our world and theirs. And that's why I need her."
Aria's voice turned steel. "You'll never touch her."
Cinder's burned lips curled into something cold.
"I already have. Three days, Aria. Then I light the match."
The flame vanished.
The silence after was deafening.
Damien stared at the empty space. "He wants to turn her into a weapon."
"No," Aria said. "He wants to turn her into a door."
"And if he succeeds?"
"Then the Hollow won't just return. They'll walk in wearing her face."
Down the hall, Echo sat by the window, curled into herself, watching the city below.
Aria knelt beside her.
"I saw him," Echo whispered. "The fire man. In my dream."
Aria swallowed hard. "He won't get you."
Echo didn't answer.
Instead, she whispered something soft.
Something that made Aria's blood run colder than any threat.
"He said… if you kept me… you'd die."
Aria pulled her close, arms wrapping around the trembling girl.
"I don't care."
Echo clutched her tightly.
"I do."
As the city slept beneath them, shadows stirred in the cracks between buildings.
And far beyond the walls of Vantier Tower, fire danced across the horizon.
The game had changed.
The enemy had a name.
And Aria had three days left to stop the end of everything.