The ruined chapel at the edge of Myrrowind stood like a forgotten bone jutting from the earth—charred walls, collapsed arches, blackened stone scorched from flame older than memory. No one worshipped here anymore. No one dared. Its god had no name, and its reliquary had long since been sealed beneath layers of warded rock and sacrificial silence.
Except now, that seal had been broken.
The Hollow Court moved like windless smoke through the ash-streaked entryway, their obsidian robes gliding over cracked tiles littered with splintered glass. Six of them entered. None spoke. Their masks gleamed in the half-light filtering through soot-stained windows—each carved with its own strange, ceremonial face. A serpent. A crow. A broken sun. A weeping moon. An eyeless child. A mask with no mouth at all.
The one who led them—tall, narrow-shouldered, wearing the many-eyed mask of a thing that once crawled between stars—spoke first.
"You told us it was sealed."
The words hissed like steam on stone.
The smallest of the six, wearing a narrow deer-like mask, flinched. "It was. I—swore the rites were unbroken. Seven-fold sanctification. Salt, ash, memory, silence—"
"Then explain this."
The leader moved aside.
The floor of the altar was cracked. The false slab had been dragged free, runes burned out from the inside. The stairwell beneath yawned open like a wound cut deep into the world.
"No one enters the Reliquary," said another—her voice sharp beneath the jagged crescent mask she wore. "Not unless they are called. Or cursed."
The leader's voice turned glacial. "And yet… someone did."
They descended.
The stairs groaned as if remembering pain. Dust stirred where no foot had fallen in generations. Below, the vault flickered with the residue of something unnatural. The air was heavy. Thin. And worse—hollow.
The pedestal in the center, once engraved with seven locks and the inverted glyph of the Forgotten Veil, now stood empty. The mask was gone.
A silence followed that felt too loud.
The Court fanned out. One of them dropped to his knees and began whispering, threads of black ink unraveling from his sleeves like spilled thoughts. Another conjured a mirror of smoke between her hands, shapes flickering through the surface like broken dreams.
But the leader said nothing. Instead, he turned back to the deer-masked member who had sworn the relic was sealed.
"Do you know what this means?"
"I—please, I didn't fail, I swear it! No one could've opened it without—without—"
Without being called.
Without being chosen.
The leader didn't respond with words.
He raised one long hand—and pointed.
Two other masked figures seized the deer-masked one. No protest came. Just a soft, choked sound as she was dragged to the edge of the vault and bound in silence.
Then the leader spoke, not to her—but to someone above.
"Bring the Seer."
Footsteps echoed from the stairs behind.
Another figure descended.
Smaller than the others. Hooded in grey. No mask.
She was young—no more than eighteen. Eyes pale blue like smoke rising from ice. Her bare hands were ink-stained, and a silver cord hung from her neck, etched with fractured runes no longer spoken aloud.
This was the Seer. The girl who walked in echoes.
The leader tilted his head. "Show us."
The Seer said nothing. She knelt beside the empty pedestal and pressed her palm to the cracked stone. Her eyes fluttered closed.
Then—breath.
The vault exhaled.
Shadows twisted. Air bent. A flicker of light coiled upward in the center of the chamber, and from it, images began to bleed through—soft, unstable, like memories trying to take shape.
A boy.
Thin. Shoulders hunched. Dirty boots. A long coat frayed at the edges.
He reached toward the pedestal—toward the mask—and the Seer's fingers twitched.
The image pulsed.
The boy looked up.
Not fully.
But enough.
A sharp cheekbone. Parted lips. Hair black as coal. Eyes the color of dying stars.
The image collapsed with a gasp—hers.
The Seer staggered back, nose bleeding. "It's bonded. It chose him."
"Do you know his name?" the leader asked.
She shook her head, trembling. "No. But he's young. Too young. He doesn't understand what he's carrying."
"Then he is a mirror with no frame," the jagged-mask woman murmured. "Dangerous. Untethered."
The leader's fingers curled into a fist. "Find him. If he has used the mask, then traces will linger. Faces he's worn. Identities he's broken. He cannot become smoke without first being fire."
The Seer lowered her voice. "He's not hiding… yet. He walks openly. He still thinks he's alone."
The leader turned toward the restrained member in the deer mask. "You swore the seal was intact."
"I—I did—"
"And yet he walked through your certainty as if it were air."
He gestured.
The others obeyed.
The Seer did not watch what came next.
Instead, she pressed her hand to the ground again, her breath shallow, and whispered:
"His eyes… they weren't his."
The leader did not respond. He simply turned toward the pedestal and extended his hand. A single strand of gold-threaded ink seeped upward from the cracked surface—thin, almost invisible—twisting like a tether caught between this world and something buried deeper.
"Three tethers," murmured the woman with the crescent mask. "Three faces worn."
The Seer nodded faintly. "Three lives touched. Three residues."
The air pulsed.
From the pedestal rose three flickering fragments of afterimage—one by one, each a different echo:
The first: a tall man armored in boiled leather and steel, sword at his hip, a crooked scar across his brow. A mercenary. Grim-eyed. Weathered. Drel Voss.
The second: stocky, thick-fingered, draped in silks. A spice merchant with gold in his teeth. Jorven of Lantern Row.
The third: undefined. A blur. Average height, pale features, a dull green cloak—too generic, too unfinished. Just a face made to pass unseen.
"A drifter," the crescent-mask whispered. "That last one… he wore it only for convenience. No anchor."
"Which means he's growing bold," said the leader. "And careless."
The Seer's eyes narrowed. "Each time he uses the mask, it leaves something behind. A stain in the fabric of truth."
The jagged-mask woman stepped forward and placed a black needle into the pedestal. It trembled, then pointed northeast—toward the city proper. "The threads are still fresh. Faint, but not yet cold."
"Then begin the Scenting," the leader commanded. "One face at a time."
"And if he's still shifting?" the Serpent-masked one asked.
The leader tilted his many-eyed mask toward the Seer.
She closed her bleeding eyes and whispered, "Then we hunt the trail of false lives, one lie at a time."
Elsewhere…
Ren was grinning ear to ear.
Not the sly smirk of Lio, not the tired grin of Jorven, and not the tight-mouthed squint of Drel Voss.
No, this was a fresh face. A nobody.
He'd bumped into the man near the western waterworks—a laborer with a limp, a lantern, and a red scarf wrapped around his throat. Nobody important. Nobody even worth a second glance. Which was exactly why Ren had chosen him.
Now, wearing the man's face, Ren walked the crowded avenues of the Gutterlight District without a single glance cast his way.
He chewed a plum as he passed a line of dockworkers. "Evening," he said with a lazy wave.
One of them grunted and kept sweeping.
Perfect.
Absolutely perfect.
"They don't even blink," Ren thought as he slid between stalls selling cured rat meat and lantern oil. "To them, I'm just part of the noise. That's the trick, isn't it? Become someone forgettable. Someone no one remembers."
He hadn't used his real face in two days now.
He didn't miss it.
He spent the morning drinking watered wine from a clay cup and trading insults with a group of dockhands near Saltbridge. They thought he was one of them—a lantern-watcher named Bram. He even faked a burn scar on his wrist with soot and candle wax.
By mid-afternoon, he was playing dice in the courtyard near Threadhook Alley with some gutterboys who swore they'd seen him in jail last year. Ren played along. He won three hands, lost two, and left with a handful of copper and half a meat pie.
The mask made it all so easy. It wasn't just looks—it was memory. Reflex. Identity. Knowledge trickling into his bones like water soaking into dry roots.
"I could wear a hundred lives," he thought as he bit into the pie. "I could be anyone, anywhere. Forever."
He didn't notice the faint shimmer of gold trailing from his boots, vanishing into the grime behind him.
Back beneath the chapel…
Three members of the Hollow Court stood now in different corners of the vault, each holding an obsidian vial.
The leader drew three runes in the air—one for each residue.
"Begin with Drel Voss," he said. "Track the scar. Track the sword. That was his first sin."
The Seer poured crushed bone-dust into a shallow basin of black water. The surface rippled—and there, they saw it:
Drel Voss, moving through Lantern Row. A child running up to greet him. A tavern girl blushing. A man tipping his hat.
"He walked in the mercenary's skin for nearly an hour," the Seer murmured.
"But not past midnight," said the Serpent-masked woman. "The Mask's limit holds. One hour, before the identity begins to override."
"And did it?"
The Seer's jaw tensed. "Nearly."
The leader turned to the others. "Find anyone who saw Drel Voss twice that day. Anyone who saw him in two places at once. Let the contradictions betray him."
Back in Myrrowind…
Ren passed the edge of the Temple of the Veilpaths again, barely glancing at its chained gate and broken 13th statue.
Something about that place always made him feel like he was being watched—by statues, or gods, or things older than either.
Still, he smirked. He tugged the scarf tighter around his throat and blended back into the traffic.
As Bram, he was nobly forgettable. But perhaps… just for the night, he'd try someone riskier. Someone bold.
"Let's be a bard," he thought. "A silver-tongue who sings in the taverns of Virelyn. See if charm is a shape I can wear."
Later that evening…
The Hollow Court's mirror showed them Jorven—the merchant face Ren had worn on his second day.
The image flickered: Jorven arguing with a silk trader. Jorven tipping a street performer. Jorven smiling too widely.
"He lingered too long," said the jagged-mask, her voice low and lined with unease. "That face left a deeper stain than the others."
The basin shimmered again, its inky surface unraveling like a wound. The scene that bled forth was vivid—Jorven, the spice merchant, striding through Brasshook Market. His steps confident. Too confident.
They watched as he argued with a silk trader, loud and uncharacteristically witty.
They saw him tip a street performer with flourish, bowing low like a man used to attention.
They watched him smile—a wide, theatrical grin Jorven was never known for.
Then the vision shifted.
Later.
The real Jorven.
His boots slapped the same stones. His voice called out familiar greetings. But confusion flickered behind his eyes when merchants avoided his gaze, when children who usually chased his scarf turned away.
He stopped before the silk stall.
"You again?" the trader snapped. "Thought you said the weave was cursed and the dye was horse piss."
Jorven blinked. "I—what? I've never said that. I just arrived."
"You paid double and insulted my mother."
"I what?"
The street performer threw a handful of coins at his feet. "Take your cursed tip back. You said you'd send your 'lute-boy' to slit my purse if I missed a note."
Jorven turned pale. "I don't even own a—what lute-boy?"
"Liar," the trader snarled.
Jorven backed away, face ashen, voice cracking. "I… I don't understand."
The mirror's glow dulled.
The Seer looked up, pale and trembling. "He's not just borrowing faces. He's sewing new seams into memory."
The serpent-masked woman folded her arms. "He's not mimicking anymore. He's inhabiting."
"Worse," said the crescent-mask, voice tight. "He's performing."
The leader stood still, the many-eyed mask reflecting nothing.
"He learns quickly," he said. "Too quickly. And he enjoys the taste."
"And if he loves it?" the jagged-mask asked.
The Seer bowed her head. "Then he won't stop. He'll forget where his own face ends."
The leader stared into the dying vision. "Three forms used. Three threads unraveled. But if we do not cut the fourth before it knots—"
"Then we lose him," the Serpent-mask finished.
Silence.
Then a hiss. "He walks ahead of us. But not far. The stain is still warm."
The leader raised a gloved hand, and the vault dimmed.
"Fan out. We track every echo. We find those who saw Jorven in two places. We find the boy in the lies."
"And if he's worn another face?" the Seer whispered.
"Then we follow the trail of broken truths," said the leader, voice like winter stone. "One false memory at a time."
And Ren?
His newfound appearance was a boy in his teens with golden hair and green eyes. He was sporting a black hat and boots.
Ren was dancing on the lip of a well, strumming a borrowed lute he didn't know how to play, pretending to be a traveling bard from the west.
Children clapped. Drunks cheered. A flower seller offered him a yellow bloom.
"Name's Sorin," he lied with a wink. "Here for one night only."
And above him, unseen by all, the wind stirred.
And the Mask resting on his face warmed softly—like it laughed.
The Seer's breath hitched. Her palm hovered over the basin as if frightened to touch it again, but the water had already changed.
The black surface rippled, and light bled through like veins beneath skin.
"Sorin," she whispered.
A new form emerged—a boyish man in bright clothes, dancing clumsily on the edge of a well. A lute dangled from his shoulder, and his laugh was sharp, alive. Children clapped in a circle around him, unaware they watched a lie in motion.
"A bard," said the jagged-mask.
"A mask atop a mask," muttered the Serpent-Seer.
The illusion flickered—Sorin tossing a coin to a passing beggar. Sorin telling a joke about a noble's wig. Sorin kissing a flower girl's hand.
The Seer's voice lowered. "He was there not more than twenty minutes ago. Brasshook Plaza. Still fresh."
The leader raised one hand, fingers splayed.
"All Hands," he commanded.
The vault shook with silent movement.
Above the ruined chapel, shadows peeled from crumbling towers. Cloaked figures, faceless and swift, burst into the dying light of dusk. Their feet left no sound. Their masks gleamed like warning sigils in the fading sun.
Toward Brasshook they flew.
Ren stood on the rooftop of a crumbling warehouse at the northern edge of Myrrowind. His hair tousled in the breeze—his real hair now. His real face.
The mask rested in his hand, still warm from the inside. It pulsed faintly, as if tired. Or amused.
Below him, the world swelled with noise: distant bells, the hammering of carts on stone, voices arguing over bread and perfume, the clatter of a dropped coin. The streets of Myrrowind, filthy and loud, stretched in every direction—alleys that wound like veins, smoke curling from chimneys, lanterns flickering to life as the night approached.
He inhaled deeply.
This was his city.
Not beautiful. Not safe. Not fair.
But free.
And for the first time in his life, he truly felt untouchable.
A smile crept across his lips as he stretched out on the edge of the rooftop, legs dangling off the side. The scent of smoke and sea salt drifted in from the east. His thumb brushed the edge of the mask's inner curve, where the inky symbols writhed in faint, shifting patterns.
"You're a strange thing," he murmured to it. "But you like me. Don't you?"
The mask didn't reply.
But it didn't need to.
Because the power it granted had changed everything.
He could go where he pleased. Be who he pleased. Cheat the world with its own faces.
Ren closed his eyes, letting the noise of the city rise around him like a song.
And then—he heard it.
Silence.
Not the quiet of a distant alley or the hush of evening.
No. This silence moved.
The kind that swallowed footsteps. That made birds fly the other way. That left even dogs uncertain which way to bark.
Ren opened his eyes.
Brasshook Plaza lay just two blocks away, a mess of turned-over crates, confused merchants, and murmuring crowds. At first, it looked like any other moment of marketplace chaos.
Then he saw them.
Six dark figures stepped through the thinning dusk.
Tall. Impossibly still. Their robes untouched by wind, their masks catching the last of the sunlight like polished bone.
One by one, people noticed.
And one by one, they grew silent.
The Hollow Court had entered Myrrowind.
Ren's heart didn't race.
Instead, it slowed.
His fingers tightened around the mask as he crouched back against the brick. His breath evened out. The rooftops seemed to lean inward, listening.
He could flee.
He could vanish.
But instead…
He smiled.
A smirk twitched at the corner of his mouth.
"They've finally come to play."
And he slipped the mask back into his coat—carefully, reverently—before rising and walking the other way.
Toward the next lie. Toward the next face.