Shards of Dawn
In a world where magic is carved from ancient relics and wielded by tyrants, a destitute orphan discovers she alone holds the key to ending the empire’s reign of terror. Hunted through slums, catacombs, and shattered ruins, Lyra Veil must unite rebels, outwit traitors, and master a forgotten magic—before darkness swallows the last hope for freedom.
The Emperor's Mask
Lyra’s heart hammered as she pressed herself into the shadow of a marble pillar, knuckles stiff where they gripped the lacquered handle of her mop. The palace loomed around her—white stone veined with gold, every surface too clean, every silence too deep. Out in the slums, even the light was grimy; here, dawn bled through jewels set into the ceiling, casting prismatic halos on the soldiers leaning bored against their posts. She kept her head bowed, hiding her face, the rough homespun of her borrowed tunic itching at her neck.
Just another rat, she commanded herself. Invisible. Harmless.
The resistance’s plan had sounded simpler than the bruised hush of Marrow’s End: slip inside during the morning scullery change, intercept the Master of Relics—a kobold-mouthed man responsible for the empire’s new horror-weapons. Mira’s maps, Kalen’s forged papers, Tess’s whisper-thin blade sewn into Lyra’s apron—everything prepared. And if she could do more, if she could glimpse Mask’s relic-arsenal, steal a secret, plant one fear in the Emperor’s heart—so much the better.
Now, her throat ached. Every step deeper into the palace pressed against her old fears. The Shard, wound tight at her collarbone and hidden under coarse cloth, throbbed in time with her pulse, now and then sparking warnings across her skin.
She passed through pageantry and power: courtiers in silk, blue-masked mages trailing tendrils of runic light, the scent of amber and crushed lilies sharp as hunger. Any wrong glance and she’d be unmasked, chained in the cells below.
A cold voice cut the air. “You. Girl.”
Lyra stilled, fixing her gaze on the floor. A steward—robes crisp, eyes like a murdered dawn—looked her over. “Take this to the east wing,” he ordered, shoving a pail into her hands. Up close, she glimpsed a fragment of silver chain at his throat—a relic-ward, not unlike the ones wielded by Mask’s closest lieutenants.
“Y-yes, sir.” Lyra ducked her head, voice roughened, and shuffled off fast as she dared.
She followed the path Kalen had traced on the stolen blueprint, counting doors. Each brought a new threat: a pair of palace guards, a knot of giggling kitchen girls, the low ripple of cruel laughter as a mage scolded a page for tracking mud. Lyra shrank smaller, forced every heartbeat to slow. She passed displays of relics—filigreed rings on velvet, shining daggers singing to her senses. One artifact, caged behind a crystal dome, made her Shard flutter as if recognizing kin, and she nearly faltered before moving on.
In the east wing, the light fell odd and cold. She found the hall that led not to the kitchens but into a forbidden sprawl of offices. A door, unmarked but braced with runes, stood partway open; voices muttered, sharp and hurried.
Lyra crept closer: “...Lord Harrow expects a demonstration. The Emperor himself will attend. Is the subject secured?”
Another voice—familiar, oily, tinged with contempt: “Secured and sedated. Mask wants results, not more failures.”
The Master of Relics. Lyra’s target. She pressed herself flat against the wall, breath trembling. If she failed now, the whole resistance might unravel.
She slipped through the shadows, keeping scatterings of dust underfoot and letting conversation mask any whispered footfalls. As the officials departed, Lyra slipped inside. The room reeked of burnt herbs and hot iron. Racks of relics lined the far wall—amulets, cracked mirrors, tiny statuettes that pulsed with baleful light. And bound to a heavy chair, hands wired to things like black pearls, a woman moaned—her face gaunt, mouth slack with potion’s grip. A test subject.
Lyra’s throat knotted. For a heartbeat she wanted to help, but the plan—the plan—demanded she move.
On a bench lay a ledger, pages inked with desperate hands. She risked a quick glance. Names, dates, places—then, at the foot, scrawled in the margins: Veil, Sera. Forfeited. Daughter unaccounted for. Extreme caution advised. Bloodline persistent.
Her mother’s name.
Lyra’s vision blurred. She held herself up on the desk. The words shook: Cross-referenced Shard lineage confirmed. Orders: observe, report. Mask will investigate in person.
She thought she would vomit. All these years, her mother’s death—her father’s absence—it wasn’t blind slaughter. It was a hunt. And Lyra was the quarry.
Footsteps. Lyra leapt behind a tapestry, clutching the Shard under her smock.
A shroud of black entered the room—robes with shifting runes, an eerie mask floating above, shifting faces—old, young, male, female—swapping from one blink to the next. Beside him, the Master of Relics, his lips pursed in terror.
“Your progress?” the mask-voice demanded. Not one voice, but dozens, layered and discordant.
“Majesty, the weapon’s unstable, but the new Shard fragment—”
“Enough. I grow weary of excuses.” The Emperor circled the room. Lyra dared peek—a shudder splitting her spine. The mask moved of its own accord, skin and metal and shadow together. Every surface whispered with runes; around his throat, chained relics shimmered, feeding him light. Black gloves covered his hands, but in a stray flash Lyra glimpsed not flesh, but translucent, shifting quartz beneath—streaked with blue-white fire.
“Where are the traitor lines?” Mask murmured. “Even now, they run from me. The Shards always return to their own.”
He was talking about her. Or those like her.
The Master of Relics ventured, “Rumor places the girl in Ashwater, but—”
Mask’s hand shot out; light bent, and the Master’s voice died. “You will find her. Or I will craft a cage that sings your every secret.” The Emperor’s voice never rose, but it chilled the air. In another blink, his face flickered, shifting to the memory of a young woman, then back to the blank, starless mask.
The Emperor’s footsteps pivoted. Lyra’s breath froze. For a breath, Mask passed so near she felt heat radiate from the relics as if from a furnace. The Shard at her breast trembled—not in fear, but in terrible resonance. He knows. He knows I’m here.
A bell chimed elsewhere in the palace—distress, or the hour? Lyra edged along the wall, finding a hidden servant’s passage she’d flagged on Mira’s sketch. But as she eased into the dark, a voice curled out:
“She is not what you think,” Mask said. The words seemed to thread directly into Lyra’s thoughts. “Blood calls to blood. The pattern returns. The storm comes home.”
Did he speak to the Master, or did he sense her hiding in the walls?
Either way, it was time to run.
Lyra moved fast—but not reckless, counting every creak underfoot. She ducked through low doors, slipped past kitchens where cooks barked at each other in a dozen tongues, sidestepped a trio of guards with axes slung across their chests.
She risked the grand stair—porphyry and firelight. On a landing, a child—a page, barely twelve—stared at her, confusion twisting his brow. Lyra pressed a finger to her lips. The page, wide-eyed, nodded. She slipped another step and—
"There!"
She bolted. The hall rang with pursuit. Men and women clad in relic mail tore after her, their boots striking sparks from marble and bone-tile. Lyra dodged between a pair of courtiers. A voice rang out, cold and amused: “Do not harm the girl. Bring her. Mask will see her himself.”
Magic flared behind her—rune-light scraping her heels, the stink of ozone and dread. Lyra seized the Shard, willing it to conceal her as it once had. The air wavered; reflections flickered. For a slivered moment, she vanished—just another echo in the palace’s magic house.
She ran for the old reliquary—a storage vault where, on her maps, a postern promised escape. The corridor twisted, spiraling downward, lit by spells and shivering torches. At the vault, she found a door sealed with runes. The Shard shivered. Lyra pressed her palm flat and the mark flashed: dawnlight seared through the lock, the runes crumbling away like burned silk.
She plunged through darkness, boots drumming over mosaic floors. As she turned a final corner, someone lunged—a palace guard, too quick. He grabbed for her throat; Lyra ducked, jabbing her elbow and breaking free. Another hand caught her cloak. She twisted, letting it tear, felt the Shard pulse and holy fear fill her veins. Light surged—warding her skin, fending off blows, spinning her body down the final stair and out…
…into storm-wet cobbles beneath the palace walls.
Freedom, for a heartbeat.
But behind her, alarms bellowed—warning the city, the resistance, anyone who would dare stand between the Emperor and his prey. Lyra stumbled through half-flooded alleys, lungs burning, every muscle quivering as if tuned to the nerve of fate itself.
She ran until all that remained was flight—and the knowledge she bore now, shrouded in wet linen and magic’s ache: her parents were not just victims, but the hunted. Mask wore every face but his own, kept his empire with stolen power and lineage—that same lineage that pulsed bright and terrible through Lyra’s veins.
Somewhere behind, the palace bells called the city to a new storm. Lyra bit down the scream clawing for her throat and vanished into Marrow’s End, bruised but burning, the truth more dangerous than any relic she had ever carried.