The continent was not yet burning, but it already smelled like something preparing to.
Before the wars, before the betrayals, before the Prophecies began clawing through the walls of reality—there was only this: A kingdom that had forgotten what it was called.
Not erased.
Not conquered.
Not renamed by decree or ritual.
Simply… forgotten.
Its own people could describe its borders, its rivers, its towering citadel of pale stone—but whenever someone tried to speak its name, their tongue faltered, as though the air refused to let the syllables form.
And this was where the Maskbearer began.
I.The City of No-Name
Fog rolled through the capital like an exhausted beast, trailing cold across every marble surface. Lanterns flickered. Banners cracked listlessly in the wind—their sigils faded, threads unraveling as if embarrassed to still exist.
Soldiers in tarnished armor patrolled without conviction.
Merchants whispered instead of calling out.
Priests performed rituals with trembling hands.
Everyone could feel something slipping.
A memory.
A meaning.
A center that no longer held.
At the heart of it all stood the Pale Citadel, its many spires stretching upward like fingers begging the sky for answers.
The Maskbearer watched it from the shadows of a crumbling archway.
He wore no emblem. No crest. No colors of allegiance.
Only the mask—a smooth obsidian face with no eyeholes, yet it saw everything with an unbearable clarity.
The mask was not decoration.
It was punishment.
Or perhaps protection.
Even he wasn't certain anymore.
II.A Kingdom on the Edge
Below him, the palace gates opened with a groaning of ancient metal.
A procession emerged, cloaked in moon-silver.
Royal priests.
Ten of them.
Moving toward the square where an enormous stone wheel—twenty spans across—waited half-buried in the earth.
The Astral Wheel of Lineage.
One of the seven Divine Artifacts of the old world.
A mechanism meant to track the legitimacy of rulers… and expose impostors.
But the wheel was broken now.
Its runes flickered between three rival lineages: Aureline, Bloodthorn, Mirithen—all claiming the throne.
Its prophecy-sensors jammed.
Its star-bone gears misaligned.
Its ancestral voices whispering contradictory verdicts.
No one knew who ruled.
No one knew who should rule.
And if the Astral Wheel couldn't remember the rightful monarch…
Maybe that was why the kingdom itself had forgotten its name.
III.The First Falling Star
A sudden boom cracked across the sky.
Heads lifted.
Breaths froze.
A streak of burning silver tore through the atmosphere, bleeding stardust, plunging toward the city.
It hit the northern battlements in a burst of radiance—like a god being slammed into stone.
THOOM.
The shockwave flattened market stalls and sent armored soldiers sprawling.
When the light cleared, something stood atop the smoking rubble.
Not human.
Not divine.
Not anything the priests' scrolls had prepared them for.
It was a Herald of Primordials—a being mostly myth, supposedly long vanished since the sealing of the Concepts ages ago. Its skin shimmered like broken constellations. Its mouth opened where mouths should not be. Its voice spilled out like grinding stone and distorted choirs.
THE NAMELESS KINGDOM HAS LOST ITS STAR.
THE ERA OF SILENCE BEGINS."
The crowd collapsed to their knees.
Terrified.
Awed.
Unsure whether to pray or run.
Priests raised their relics in trembling hands.
Soldiers pointed spears with no real hope.
The Maskbearer did neither.
He stepped forward.
IV. The Maskbearer's First Move
He walked across the rubble-strewn square with quiet, deliberate footsteps, cloak trailing like the shadow of something far larger. People parted instinctively, not recognizing him—but sensing the danger around him like a cold wind.
The Herald's collapsing starlight reflected on his mask.
They faced each other, two anomalies in a kingdom already cracking.
"YOU WEAR THE SEAL OF CONTRADICTION," the Herald rumbled.
"YOU SHOULD NOT EXIST."
The Maskbearer tilted his head.
His voice was calm, almost soft, but carried a weight that made the Herald's light distort.
"Answered— Neither should you."
The Herald screeched—an awful, reality-warping shriek that snapped the nearest marble pillars like chalk.
The Maskbearer didn't flinch.
Instead, his hand brushed the edge of his mask.
The obsidian surface rippled.
A fracture appeared—just a hairline crack.
Enough to let… something leak through.
Not light.
Not shadow.
Something deeper.
Something that made the Herald recoil.
But before the Maskbearer could release whatever that thing was—
The ground cracked beneath both of them.
A symbol ignited beneath the Herald's feet:
A seven-pointed star.
Each point representing one of the Seven Crowns, the rival kingdoms circling this one.
It pulsed once, twice—
—and then detonated.
The Herald was launched skyward in a pillar of blinding light, screaming a garbled word that might have been a warning or a prophecy.
When the smoke cleared, the Herald was gone.
And carved into the shattered stone was a message written in celestial flame:
THE FIRST KINGDOM WILL FALL BEFORE THE FORTIETH DAY.
V. The Maskbearer's Shadow Mission Begins
The Maskbearer stared at the burning message until it faded.
His gloved hand returned to the mask, gently pressing the crack closed. The… presence behind it calmed. Distant. Dormant. But hungry.
His head turned toward the distant mountains where the next kingdom lay.
He murmured—
No. Promised:
"I'll reach the truth of the Prophecies before the Crowns devour each other…
…or me."
Then he walked into the fog.
Toward alliances waiting to shatter.
Toward kings who feared him.
Toward queens who would betray him.
Toward assassins whispering his name.
And toward the primordial truth that every kingdom had been built upon: If you cannot remember the name of your land…
you cannot remember what you were meant to protect.