The Mask Cracks
"You wore the mask well," Leon said softly, his voice level but charged with meaning. "But even the strongest masks crack when pushed too hard."
The night seemed to breathe in around them.
The courtyard was still scorched from their earlier clash—charred stone, faint smoke coiling upward like dying ghosts of battle. The air smelled of ash and iron. Flames had long gone out, but the ground still glowed faintly in veins of ember.
Nova stood at the rim of the crater, gasping. Captain Black and Vice-Captain Ronan shared a glance but did not speak. Vellore's soldiers knelt at their sides, glancing between their king and dead knight—nobody dared to move, nobody even dared to breathe.
The silence was complete.
Across that shattered earth, Alina's form quivered subtly, her sword still lowered but her body coiled like a drawn bowstring. Her eyes—those keen, intelligent eyes—narrowed under the faint glitter of magic that still shrouded her face.
