Alec stood at the edge of the Hollow Market, the paper mask still in his hand, when the lights above flickered.
One moment, the stars overhead shimmered softly.
The next—they vanished.
The sky turned void-black, as if something had blotted out reality itself.
A hush fell across the Market.
Vendors froze.
Shifting figures turned their heads in unison.
Even the flame-lanterns dimmed, shrinking to embers.
"It's too soon," murmured the book-masked woman beside him.
"What is?" Alec asked.
"The Shroud. It stirs."
And then it came.
--------------
The veil between worlds rippled.
From the far end of the Market, a figure emerged—a tall shape wrapped in shadows so dense they devoured light. Its form shifted with every blink. One moment, it looked human. The next, insectile. Then a cloak of teeth. Then… something with no shape at all.
Around its head, a crown of flickering lights spun slowly—each flame whispering a forgotten name in languages that hurt to hear.
All around them, the Market began to change.
The stalls bent away. Bridges cracked. The ground itself pulsed like a living organ.
Alec clutched the mask tighter.
"Why is it coming here?" he asked, voice tight.
"Because something woke," said the woman. "And it bears the coin."
His coin.
The Veilbound coin pulsed in his pocket, growing hotter by the second.
He stepped back—but the figure had already seen him.
It raised one long arm.
The shadows surged forward like a flood.
-------------
Alec tried to run, but his legs wouldn't move.
His mind screamed as cold fire crawled across his skin.
The shadow tide reached him—and stopped.
A thin barrier shimmered around him, barely visible. A circle of seven sigils, drawn in flickering blue light, now encased his body.
The paper mask had activated.
The creature paused.
Then it spoke—not with a mouth, but with thought.
"He is unripe. Unshaped. But touched."
A second voice joined the first.
"We see the echo of the door. He is marked by the Epoch."
A third, softer, more amused.
"Then let him bleed. We'll find him again... when the mask cracks."
The shadow dissolved.
The Market gasped as if exhaling.
The stars returned.
The creature was gone.
But Alec wasn't the same.
---------------
His knees gave out.
The woman caught him before he hit the ground.
"Now you understand," she whispered. "The Shroud is not a thing. It's a many."
"What was that?" Alec choked out.
"One of its lesser eyes. A Seeker. Sent to test you."
"Did I pass?"
"You didn't die. That's a start."
-------------
She handed him a folded scrap of black vellum.
"Take this. It will lead you to the Second Mask. But beware—now that the Shroud knows your shape, it will not stop. Not until you become one of its pieces."
Alec stood slowly, heart pounding, the mask still pulsing in his hand.
This wasn't a game.
This wasn't fate.
It was war.
And he had just taken his first step into it.