Chapter 10: City of Masks
Chapter 10: City of Masks
The city of Caldyra was a maze of concrete, glass, and ghosts.
Shu stood at the edge of the lower districts, cloaked beneath a tattered scarf, watching the traffic of the city swirl like a hive around a dying star. Towers rose into the smog-choked sky, each adorned with Imperial flags and red-lens sentry drones. Giant screens played looping propaganda footage—scenes of unity, order, and control. But beneath the gloss, the cracks ran deep.
The people here walked fast and kept their heads low. No one smiled. No one looked up.
"Feels like a prison with open doors," Shu muttered.
Sera adjusted her wrist rig beside him, scanning the faces flowing past them. "Caldyra's under martial code since the last Fold incursion. Every quadrant's monitored. Movement between sectors is restricted without implants."
Shu glanced at the Sky Key hidden beneath his tunic. "And I'm guessing fake IDs aren't enough anymore."
Sera nodded grimly. "We get flagged once, and the Empire locks us out. Or worse—hands us over to the Fold."
Shu watched a patrol drone drift by, scanning pedestrians with silent beams of red light. "Then we find her fast."
Sera tapped the interface again. "Our signal puts Nia Avell in Sector 7-Gamma. That's... deep in the undergrid."
"Where all the power drains go," Shu said. "Where the Empire stops watching."
"Exactly," Sera said. "Too poor to regulate, too dangerous to patrol. Perfect hiding place for someone who doesn't know she's carrying a mind that could rewrite the sky."
They moved carefully, taking side alleys and cutting through the backs of freight tunnels. At every checkpoint, Sera used low-grade pulse jammers to throw off scanners for a few precious seconds. Twice, they had to double back to avoid Fold spotters—agents who wore plain faces and quiet boots, but who watched the world like they owned it.
At the edge of 7-Gamma, they found their first real sign.
Graffiti.
Etched in dull crimson across the side of a crumbling wall:
> "The Flame Remembers."
Shu stepped back, eyes narrowing. "That's not random."
Sera nodded slowly. "It's the mark of the Embers of Cael."
Shu exhaled. "I thought they were a myth. Sky Order loyalists turned anarchists?"
"They're real. They went underground after the Vault Purge. Only surface when the Fold gets too close to something they want."
Sera turned toward him. "If they're tagging here, it means they've either found Nia… or they're waiting for us."
A voice rang out from the shadows. "Lucky guess, exile."
Shu turned fast—blades half-drawn.
But the figure who stepped into the light was unarmed. Young. Face smeared with dust, eyes sharp behind a cracked visor. She raised her hands.
"Easy," she said. "Name's Vessa. I speak for the Embers."
Shu didn't sheath his blades. "Why are you following us?"
"Because you're following the wrong signals," she replied. "Nia's not just some girl in the system. She's changing."
Sera stepped forward. "You've seen her?"
Vessa nodded. "We found her two nights ago. She was sick. Head splitting with static. Said she could hear 'wings in her blood.' Then she passed out. We took her in."
"Where is she now?" Shu asked.
Vessa hesitated.
"That's complicated," she said. "We're not the only ones looking for her. Lyra's already in Caldyra. She's got the Imperial Reliquary under lockdown, claiming she's here on 'artifact security protocol.'"
Shu's blood ran cold. "She knows Nia's here."
"She does," Vessa said. "And so does the Fold. You've got three hours before this whole sector turns into a warzone."
Sera cursed under her breath. "Then bring us to her."
Vessa looked at Shu.
"You want the girl?" she said. "Then you do something for us."
Shu's eyes narrowed. "What kind of something?"
Vessa's smile was brief. "The Empire keeps a Sky Vault Compass locked beneath the city, inside their Reliquary. It's not a weapon—it's a relic locator. Points to hidden Order structures across the continent. We need it to rebuild."
Shu folded his arms. "And if we say no?"
"Then you keep chasing shadows while the Fold grabs the girl and Lyra uses her to rewrite what's left of the lattice."
Shu looked at Sera. She looked back, already calculating risks.
Finally, Shu said, "Where's the reliquary?"
---
The Imperial Reliquary was a fortress masquerading as a museum.
Located in Sector 3, it loomed over the square like a temple, flanked by guards and sealed behind force barriers. Tourists visited the upper levels—shells of history and glory—but the true relics lay five floors underground, surrounded by pulse sentries and encrypted gates.
Sera hacked the layout from a black-market node. "Mainframe's isolated. We can't go through. We go under."
That night, they moved beneath the city.
Old freight tunnels, once used for power and emergency transit, still cut through the underbelly of Caldyra like veins. They moved fast, ducking echo-mines and surveillance mics. Every light they passed buzzed like it remembered brighter days.
They breached the reliquary's sub-floor at 03:12 local time.
Sera disarmed the pressure field while Shu neutralized a drone sentry with a precision dart. Inside, the vault's main chamber was a cathedral of metal and stasis glass—rows of forgotten Order devices, none active, all watching.
In the center, suspended above a pedestal of folded crystal, floated the Vault Compass.
Shu stepped forward.
"It's Skyglass," he said. "Old. But… humming."
Sera whispered, "Touch it carefully."
He reached for it—
—and the room exploded in light.
An alarm screamed. Shields activated. Turrets unfolded from the ceiling.
Sera shouted, "MOVE!"
They ran.
Lasers lanced the air behind them. One singed Shu's shoulder, spinning him into a crouch. Sera turned and fired an EMP burst. A turret fried in a crack of sparks. They leapt over a closing gate and rolled into the exit tunnel just as it slammed shut behind them.
Sera laughed breathlessly. "You always pick the loud ones."
Shu held up the Vault Compass, its face spinning like a clock caught in stormlight. "You think it works?"
Sera studied it. "It's… pointing somewhere."
Shu followed her gaze.
And felt it in his bones.
It pointed toward Nia.
---
Vessa met them in a half-collapsed station under 7-Gamma, lit only by cracked sodium lights and the hum of repurposed Order drones.
She led them to the back.
There, on a makeshift cot surrounded by sealed conduits and scraps of old Order memory wire, lay a girl.
Seventeen. Dark hair. Pale skin. Hands trembling slightly.
Shu stepped closer.
Her eyes opened.
And for the second time in his life, Shu felt the world pause.
Nia's eyes weren't human.
They shimmered—like mirrored skyglass—flecks of gold spinning slowly in her irises. And her voice, when she spoke, was two tones at once.
"Hello, Shu."
He froze. "You… know me?"
She sat up slowly. "No. But she does."
Sera whispered, "Aurelia."
Nia nodded once. "I don't know what's happening. Sometimes I'm here. Sometimes I'm somewhere else. In a city that floats. In a cradle made of code. And there's a voice that isn't mine, but knows every memory I never lived."
Shu sat beside her. "You're remembering things that never happened. Things that belonged to someone who was never born."
"I dream of stars I've never seen," she said. "I feel like I'm being written by someone else."
Sera scanned her again. "Her bio-patterns are fluctuating. Not just mental. Her cells are evolving. Like she's being rewritten in real time."
Suddenly, Nia clutched her chest.
"They're coming," she gasped. "Both of them. Lyra. The Fold. They want to finish what the Order started."
Shu stood. "Then we don't let them."
Nia grabbed his hand.
And the Sky Key flew from his cloak, spinning wildly in front of her.
It hovered.
Then split.
One piece hovered over Nia's chest.
The other over Shu's heart.
They spun once—then fused again, now brighter than ever before.
Vessa stepped forward, stunned. "She is the third Key."
And the Vault Compass activated fully—casting a beacon into the air. A map. Not of ruins. Not of people.
But of a door.
An impossible door, sealed between worlds.
Labeled only with one name:
> "SKYGRAVE."
Sera whispered, "I thought it was a myth."
Vessa nodded. "It was. Until now."
Shu clenched his fists.
Lyra was coming. The Fold was rising. Nia was changing.
The race was no longer for relics.
It was for reality itself.