The chamber beneath the Broken Reliquary was cold—colder than the deepest vaults beneath the Bastion. The walls were carved from black stone laced with veins of pulsing red, alive with corrupted ley energy that slithered and coiled with every breath of the room.

  This place was not marked on any map of Silvermoon. It had never been. It lay hidden far beyond the reach of the Guardians, coiled around the ancient roots of the city’s magic like a parasite feeding on memory itself.

  Torches of black flame lined the perimeter, their smoke curling upward into an unseen ceiling. The air tasted of ash and old blood.

  And at the far end of the chamber, seated atop a low obsidian dais, was the Masked King.

  His face was shrouded behind a sleek, expressionless mask of silver and onyx. Smooth. Featureless. The kind of mask that didn’t reflect light—it devoured it. His robes trailed along the floor like liquid shadow, embroidered with red thread that shimmered faintly when he moved.

  He did not move often.

  Before him, four agents knelt. The survivors of the descent. The ones who had witnessed the gate stir. Their heads were bowed, cloaks damp from the depths, their auras weak and ragged from proximity to the leyline breach.

  “You touched the threshold,” the Masked King said. His voice was soft, almost soothing, but layered with something beneath it—an echo of something ancient and merciless.

  “Yes, my King,” replied the foremost agent. Her voice trembled as she raised her eyes just slightly. “The gate responded to him. The outsider. The one the leyline calls.”

  “And it spoke?” the Masked King asked.

  She nodded. “The first echo emerged. It addressed them both. The Guardian, and the attuned.”

  There was a long silence.

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  The Masked King leaned forward ever so slightly. “Then the awakening has begun.”

  One of the kneeling agents—wounded, gaunt—shivered. “Shall we continue the excavation, my King? The path beneath the gate—”

  “No,” the Masked King interrupted, raising a hand. “Not yet. We have waited centuries. We will not stumble in the final hour.”

  He rose slowly from the obsidian throne, his height imposing, his movements liquid-smooth despite the heavy robes. He stepped toward the center of the chamber, where a vast scrying circle lay carved into the stone—a map of Silvermoon etched in flowing script and leyline channels, warped by shadow magic.

  The city’s magic glowed faintly within it, but near the center—near the nexus—it flickered erratically.

  He gestured once, and the image shifted. A flicker of light—Matrim’s presence—burned at the nexus. Then again in the Bastion. The Masked King’s head tilted ever so slightly.

  “He’s moving,” he said. “Deeper into the city’s memory. The Vigil Archives?”

  Another agent nodded. “He found the name.”

  The Masked King’s voice remained calm, but the edge behind it sharpened. “Then he has begun to remember what he is.”

  A beat of silence passed.

  “And the Guardian?” he asked.

  “She stands with him.”

  The Masked King turned his gaze toward the edge of the chamber, where a half-circle of shadow-veiled figures observed silently from behind twisted iron screens. The inner circle of the Court. The oldest members.

  “They are two,” the King said. “But they will fracture, eventually. That is the nature of balance. Light does not stand beside shadow forever.”

  He lifted a hand, and from the floor rose a new projection: a web of leyline fractures, subtly expanding outward from the gate.

  “This is not about destruction,” the King said. “It never was. Let the Guardians think we want chaos. Let the High Lady scramble her wards. Let Vaelor sharpen his blade in the wrong direction.”

  His hand closed into a fist.

  “We want release.”

  The agents remained silent. None dared interrupt.

  “And now,” he continued, “the attuned walks the path. He will try to fight it. To bury it again. But the deeper he goes, the more he will become what the gate remembers.”

  A soft chuckle escaped him, muffled beneath the mask.

  “He is not their weapon,” the Masked King whispered. “He is ours.”

  He turned toward the shadow-veiled council. “Begin the second movement. Let the cracks widen. Let them send their Guardians chasing ghosts. We move beneath.”

  One of the cloaked figures inclined its head. “And the boy?”

  The Masked King turned his masked face back to the glowing image of Matrim.

  “We guide him. Gently. Until he opens the door with his own hand.”

  The chamber darkened as the flames along the walls flickered lower.

  And in the center of the city, the gate beneath Silvermoon stirred once more.