Prince stepped out into the early-morning fog of Sira, Nasir's body moving naturally beneath him. The city was quiet, but the silence was deliberate, calculated. Every narrow alley, every crooked street, seemed to watch, to measure.
He adjusted instinctively, his mind cataloging details the body couldn't notice: the curve of a lamppost shadow, the slight tilt of a shutter, the faint echo of someone breathing behind a closed door. Sira notices everything, he thought. Every step, every hesitation, every secret.
The Boy Who Knows Too Much
A boy emerged from a pile of newspapers stacked in the alley, no more than ten years old. His clothes were worn; his eyes sharp.
"You're not from here," the boy said.
Prince's gaze assessed him calmly. Not fear. Curiosity. Observation.
"No," he replied.
"Then be careful. Sira doesn't welcome new arrivals at night."
"Why?"
The boy lowered his voice. "Four people vanished in the Old Clock District two weeks ago. Not robbed. Not attacked. Just… gone."
Prince noted the tone: resignation, not panic. He cataloged, observed, processed. Patterns, consequences, probability.
"And the masks?" he asked.
The boy's face darkened. "They appear before strange events. Some never return."
Prince nodded. Small details confirmed large truths. Veil activity. Hidden organizations. Rules enforced silently.
He dropped a coin from Nasir's pocket onto the cart. "For the warning."
The boy blinked. Most people didn't pay for common knowledge. "Don't stay out too late. Sira notices more than you think."
Prince inclined his head. "Understood."
Sira Remembers
The deeper Prince walked, the stranger Sira became. Streets curved in impossible ways. Lamps flickered without wind. Alleyways widened, then narrowed. Walls bore faint symbols etched long ago—some warnings, some permission marks.
He sensed subtle threads of the Veils—pulls and nudges responding to his soul, not the vessel. Nasir's body moved smoothly, but the awareness, the calm calculation, the patience—all Prince—read every pattern, every anomaly.
Then he noticed something on the ground.
A mask, blank, featureless, identical to the one from the chamber. Rusted, stained, half-buried in fog. Someone had left it—or meant for him to find it.
Prince crouched to examine it. The city shifted imperceptibly around him, responding to the soul inside Nasir's body. Sira was alive, layered, and patient.
Silent Observation
He continued walking. Shadowed figures passed in alleys. Windows peeked at him then closed. Every detail mattered.
Prince's mind cataloged patterns: who moved deliberately, who avoided eye contact, who paused at certain corners. Threads of hidden Veil power flickered faintly as he walked.
Every step he took, the city remembered. Every glance, every thought, left a mark.
And somewhere, above, unseen threads of the Veils acknowledged him.
Prince—conscious, calculating, awake—was already part of Sira.
And Sira was waiting.