"A mask may hide the face from the world. But what hides the world from the face?"
The city of Vatayana held its breath.
For weeks, no monarch sat the throne.
No decree had been issued. No tribute collected. No festival sung. And yet, no chaos reigned.
Instead, stillness ruled — that tense, eerie stillness of a land not at peace, but at the edge of something profound. As if the walls, stones, and sky themselves were waiting.
At the center of the silence sat the Mask.
Ananthu had placed it not in a temple, not in a royal chamber, but at the foot of the Great Gate, where commoners and kings both once entered.
The mask was untouched.
No soldier dared seize it. No priest dared anoint it. No rebel dared destroy it.
It simply sat.
Watching.
---
But eyes watched back.
People came from villages, cities, even across the desert, just to glimpse it.
The obsidian face, gleaming like oil under sun, reflected not their image, but something deeper.
One saw betrayal. Another, ambition. A mother saw the child she had silenced. A warrior saw the war he pretended was just.
It was not just Yuvan's mask anymore.
It was the face of power itself — faceless, formless, universal.
And no one could look long without looking away.
---
Then came the day it spoke.
Not in voice.
But in consequence.
---
At the broken palace, in the Hall of Scrolls, the court finally reconvened. For weeks they had pretended the throne still stood — issuing false documents, paying guards from secret coffers, keeping the illusion alive.
But illusion cannot govern reality forever.
The nobles gathered, tense.
They debated electing a new sovereign. Some proposed a council. Others, a religious tribunal.
The priests warned, "To rule now is to rule in shadow. The mask speaks. The people no longer bow blindly."
Countess Mira, sharp and serene, spoke a word none had dared utter:
> "Let the people choose."
Gasps rippled like wind through brittle leaves.
The idea was ancient. Lost. Forbidden.
But it struck something raw and real.
And dangerous.
---
Meanwhile, in the Red Quarter, where once only gossip and wine flowed, artists had begun to paint the mask — not reverently, but rebelliously.
A mural showed the mask over the heads of kings — each with their crowns shattered.
Another showed a child wearing the mask, holding a mirror to a screaming general.
Another, bolder still, showed the people themselves — each with a fragment of the mask embedded in their brow.
No longer was the mask a symbol of judgment alone.
It had become a mirror of responsibility.
---
The palace trembled — not from earthquakes, but from the crumbling of certainty.
And deep beneath it all, Yuvan returned.
---
He had wandered beyond the cities, disguised, half-mad. But now, gaunt and cloaked in silence, he entered the capital.
No guard recognized him. He had no crown. Only the remnants of memory in his gaze.
He walked straight to the Great Gate.
The crowd parted like water before a ghost.
There, before the mask, he knelt.
No one stopped him.
---
He stared into the face that had once destroyed him.
And for the first time, he did not recoil.
He studied the shadows carved into its cheeks, the way the lips curled as if resisting silence, the weight of the brow — no longer cruel, but burdened.
He whispered, "Is this still me?"
And the wind answered, not with words, but with stillness.
In that moment, he understood:
It was him.
But it was also what power had made of him, and what he had made of power.
---
The sculptor appeared again.
From the crowd, Ananthu stepped forward — slower now, older, eyes heavy not with age but with too much memory.
Yuvan rose. Their eyes met.
The crowd froze.
It was not a meeting of king and subject.
But of two men shaped by the same curse.
Ananthu spoke:
> "Do you see now?"
Yuvan nodded.
> "Why did you carve it?"
Ananthu's voice was soft. "Because you asked."
Yuvan knelt again. "Then carve once more."
Ananthu shook his head. "The mask is carved not in stone now — but in the minds of the people."
---
And he turned — not toward the palace, but toward the crowd.
He held up the old mask — Yuvan's first, broken mask — its three pieces now bound by golden veins.
> "This is the face of every ruler who forgets."
He held up the new mask — the universal face — obsidian, unbroken.
> "This is the face of power. Of truth. Of us all."
And then he set them side by side.
One, shattered but known.
The other, whole but unspeakable.
---
From the crowd, a young girl stepped forward. Barefoot, eyes steady.
She looked at both.
Then she asked, "Which one will rule now?"
Ananthu smiled — not in mockery, but in sorrow.
> "That depends. On which one you wear."
---
In that moment, the unmasking happened.
Not with fire.
Not with rebellion.
But with recognition.
People looked at each other — not as ruled and ruler, but as mirrors.
The city changed that day.
No banners waved.
No new king crowned.
Instead, a third place was built at the center of the square — not throne, not altar, but a circle.
Around it, people sat — and spoke.
Not to declare law.
To share truth.
And slowly, from that circle, new ways of ruling began — not perfect, not easy — but shared.
---
As for Yuvan, he vanished again.
Some say he became a teacher in a mountain village.
Others say he lives in exile, carving faces from wood — not of kings, but of commoners.
Some even whisper he wanders from city to city, carrying a mirror, asking:
> "What do you see when you look back?"
---
And Ananthu?
He returned to the cave once more.
Not to carve.
To rest.
The walls still held thousands of masks — kings, tyrants, heroes.
But now, among them, he added one more.
His own.
---
> Power cannot be unmasked by force. Only by seeing.
And once seen, it changes us forever.