The east quarter stank of damp grain and smoke.
Harun kept to the alleys.
The Mask tugged him by invisible threads.
Every path shimmered with danger.
Some pulsed quick like frightened animals.
Some thudded slow like drunks pounding on doors.
He passed a shutter where a bakery sign once hung.
Hooks left to rust.
Flour had once dusted this lane.
Now ash filled the grooves, bitter where sweet had been.
Harun remembered standing here years back, coins short, hunger sharp.
A woman had slipped him bread when the other watchman wasn't looking.
Light flickered ahead.
A square.
A cart lay toppled in the centre, grain spilled grey with ash.
Two Bureau guards stood over a kneeling man, wrists raw in hemp.
A third pressed an iron seal to his chest.
Flesh hissed.
The smell slapped Harun's throat.
The man didn't scream.
He lifted his head—
Harun knew him.
The cooper. Rope-scarred hands. Water at the pump last winter.
A laugh like a dropped hammer.
Now, only stubbornness in his eyes.
"Contraband," a guard said, rattling a clay jar by his ear.
"Heretic salt. Where did you get it?"
"It's salt," the cooper rasped. "From the well market."
"Ash-salt," the guard corrected. "Different penalty."
Harun's nails dug into his palms.
Salt saved.
Salt damned.
A pinch cooled a fever.
A line across a door stopped whispers.
But the Bureau's books called it heresy.
Contraband.
Gallows.
Truth: If you speak, you die.
Truth: If you don't, he does.
Threads showed a way.
Along the square's edge.
Behind the cart.
Through a gap between barrels.
Harun followed. Each step cut between longing and dread.
The Mask warmed.
He tasted iron.
"Orders are orders," a guard sighed, raising his rifle.
The cooper's eyes found Harun in the dark.
Recognition.
He didn't betray him.
Didn't speak.
Only closed his eyes.
The rifle lowered.
Rope tightened.
They hauled him to his feet.
The jar slipped—
rolled—
tapped Harun's boot.
The Mask pulsed hot.
Truth: You can take it.
Harun crouched, feigned laces, palmed the jar, slid it into his satchel.
No lightning.
Only his heart beating louder, ribs tighter.
The patrol marched the cooper away.
The square hushed. Ash hissed like rain.
Harun leaned on a stone and breathed until he could taste again.
He had saved crystals.
Left a man to burn for them.
His stomach twisted.
"Coward," he whispered.
The Mask warmed, sweat under bone.
Truth: You chose a smaller death to stop a larger one.
"Don't dress it."
Truth: You are not the only one who eats lies to live.
He pushed off the wall.
The jar thudded heavily in his satchel, a second heart out of rhythm.
He pictured the cooper's wife waking to an empty bed.
The boy pounded on the Bureau gate until his hands were bruised and bleeding.
And himself, holding the jar.
No justification.
The houses leaned close in the next lane. Roofs touched like bent heads.
A cat thin as a bone bared its teeth silently at him.
The Mask tugged.
He knocked twice. Paused. Once.
Bolts slid.
A woman with grey hair and a knife let him in.
Heat pressed his cheeks.
A fire. A pot.
A boy on a pallet, lips cracked.
Two children staring wide-eyed at the Mask.
"I don't want trouble," the woman said. "I want my boy to live."
Harun set the satchel down.
Unscrewed the jar.
A pinch to his tongue—clean.
Salt into the pot.
Steam rose.
A swab of the boy's lips. A cloth between his teeth.
The Mask whispered like a hand on his shoulder.
Truth: This is the right lie to tell your heart.
"Fever's breaking," Harun said.
Because it was.
Because she needed it.
The knife was set down carefully.
"Then go," she whispered. "Before graycoats bring storm."
He left the jar.
He left heavier than he'd come.
Outside, the Mask tugged again.
Truth: They have doubled the patrols.
"I see it," Harun muttered.
Lanterns where there had been none.
Boot rhythm rewritten.
A boy slid from a doorway—soot-smeared, sharp-eyed.
"You the medic?" His gaze flicked to the satchel. To Mask.
"No," Harun said.
Truth: You are.
The boy jerked his chin toward the mill.
"Third door after the wheel. Sister's coughing up blood. Come if you will."
Gone.
Harun's feet dragged.
The Mask tugged him east.
Toward the square.
Stalls hunched under ash-black canvas.
A cart stood lashed to iron rings.
Behind it, a tall frame draped in cloth.
Bureau relic team.
Lanterns angled.
Iron fittings clicked.
One man held a long hoop-pole.
The Mask burned metal-sharp on Harun's tongue.
The hoop pulled the sheet back.
A cage revealed.
Bars tight.
Inside—
A boy. Sixteen.
Ribs sharp. Lips cracked and white.
Eyes black with hunger that had eaten every other light.
His fingers groped through the bars.
Not for men. Not for weapons.
For a bowl.
It glistened thick and wrong.
The smell curled into Harun's skull like smoke with teeth.
He gagged.
Hand found the chisel in his sleeve.
The boy lunged.
Bars sang.
"Careful," the commander snapped.
"Don't let it touch your skin."
"I know my work," the man with the bowl muttered, edging it closer.
The Mask burned.
Truth: Walk away.
Harun stepped forward.
Into the light.
"Hey!"
Boots behind.
Cold steel kissed the base of his skull.
"Hands up. Slow."
Harun raised them.
The chisel balanced in his palm like a hinge.
"Relic-bearer," the young guard breathed.
Fear in his finger on the trigger.
"Don't move."
"Bring him," the commander called.
"Let him watch."
The boy in the cage whimpered.
Hunger dragged him against bars.
The bowl slid closer.
The Mask flooded Harun's veins until the square blurred.
Truth: Choose.