Rain fell hard over Wyrmere.
The city below blurred into gray streaks and gaslight as Alec stood atop the old bell tower near the edge of the Gutter District—a place his father once brought him, long before the fall.
The Second Mask was cold against his chest, tied beneath his shirt.
And it was whispering.
-----------
He'd returned to the Rivenhart estate ruins that night, following the call.
Most of the estate had been torn down or scavenged for parts after the Purge Trials, but the stone crypt in the lower cellars remained.
Hidden.
Unmarked.
As a boy, he'd once been told never to go there.
So naturally, he went.
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Inside the crypt, the air was heavy, thick with old dust and the scent of iron.
Torches flared to life when he stepped past the threshold—without flint or flame. Just recognition.
The Rivenhart sigil—now erased from Wyrmere's noble registry—was carved into the stone: a lion devouring its own shadow.
And below it: a door that had no hinges.
Just a blood groove.
Alec hesitated.
Then pressed his palm against the groove.
It bit him.
His blood soaked into the lines—and the door opened.
-----------
Beyond it lay a circular chamber filled with mirrors, altars, and relics wrapped in black cloth.
At its center, a pedestal.
Upon it, a book bound in deep red leather.
Not quite paper. Not quite flesh.
A title etched in deep runes:
"The Testament of the Veilbound."
He opened it.
And his mind was nearly torn in two.
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Visions. Screams. Pages that moved. Ink that bled.
A history never taught.
A war never ended.
A power sealed in masks and bloodlines.
And a family that once wielded it all.
The Rivenharts.
Keepers of the Veil.
Breakers of Chains.
And traitors—depending on who told the story.
His father had tried to destroy this chamber.
But some things refuse to burn.
----------
Alec closed the book, panting.
The walls around him began to hum.
The masks responded.
So did the coin.
And far, far away, something else did too.
------------
That night, in the high towers of the Academy of Arcane Logic, a professor woke screaming.
He had seen seven gates, and a boy with a lion's shadow.
In the slums of Wyrmere, a blind prophet tore her own eyes out, whispering the name Rivenhart in reverse until her voice cracked.
And beneath the Hollow Market, the masked woman burned a page from her cloak and said:
"The heir is awake."
--------------
Alec left the crypt with the book, the mask, and the weight of a thousand years pressing into his spine.
He knew now:
His family didn't fall.
They chose exile.
To keep something locked away.
And he had just begun to open it.