The Hollow Society was quiet.
Too quiet.
In the wake of Alaric Vane's assault on the airfield, the underworld recoiled like a serpent scorched by light. Meetings were canceled. Safehouses vanished overnight. Informants fell silent. And through the alleys of the city's elite, fear crept in shadows too old to name.
Some said it was a new vigilante.
Others whispered of a forgotten bloodline stirring in the dark.
But those who truly understood the shape of the storm said nothing.
Because fear had found its voice.
And it bore the name Alaric Vane.
—
Inside Balen's office on the top floor of the Astoria, the air was thick—silent, but heavy. Outside the rain-slicked windows, the skyline shimmered beneath clouds like a city trying to forget what slept within it.
Vira dropped a dossier onto the polished table. "He's resurfaced."
Balen looked up from his notes. "Who?"
She tapped the file. "The Man with No Face. Donovan Wraithe's personal fixer."
Balen's brow creased. "I thought he was a myth."
"No." Vira's voice was colder than usual. "And worse—he's already begun eliminating Hollow Society traitors. One by one. Clean. Surgical. He's preparing the inner circle for war."
Across the room, Alaric stood by the window, his reflection faintly outlined in the glass. The pendant at his chest gave a soft, rhythmic glow—subtle, but real.
He didn't speak for a long moment.
Then, quietly, "Let him come. Let them all come."
Balen spoke cautiously. "Donovan Wraithe doesn't fight fair. He's an architect of fear. Every move is layered with meaning. This man—The Man with No Face—he's a symbol. A message dressed in skin. If he's coming, we'll feel it before we see it."
Alaric turned, silver-flecked eyes catching the light like slivers of stormcloud.
"Then we make sure he feels me first."
—
That evening, on a rooftop above a half-built skyscraper, Alaric sat alone.
The city below pulsed like a distant heartbeat—oblivious to the legacy stirring in the bones of its streets. Wind scraped against the steel beams. Dust curled around him like smoke.
He closed his eyes.
And breathed.
The Cycle of Withheld Thunder.
A Vane technique lost to time—one that didn't release power, but compressed it. Every breath folded energy inward, condensing it like lightning coiled into muscle.
The pendant glowed softly, responding not to action, but to intention. The very air seemed to press tighter, as if drawn inward by the rhythm of his breathing. Distant lights flickered. Pressure shifted. Even the city seemed to listen.
His voice broke the silence: "I won't become like them. I won't lose myself."
But the wind answered with nothing.
And in its silence, a truth whispered: To rise, you must sacrifice.
—
Elsewhere, at the Marrow estate, frost laced the hedges like white veins over skin. Celeste stood in the garden, the chill biting at her fingers. The early winter came faster this year—but it was more than weather.
It was weight.
She stared down at her phone.
Three messages. No replies.
She could still picture his voice, feel the warmth of his hands when they used to walk this same garden. Back then, he had been present. Now, he was... elsewhere.
Her thumb hovered over the call button.
But she didn't press it.
"I'm losing him," she whispered. "And I don't know how to stop it."
Behind a curtained window, Garron Marrow watched her. Eyes narrowed. Fingers steepled.
"She's beginning to see his reach," he muttered. "That boy's becoming more than a threat. He's becoming a legend. And legends… are harder to kill."
—
In the bowels of the East Hollow district, beneath a jazz bar that had long since abandoned its rhythm, Balen sat across from a man named Flicker.
Burn scars lined his throat. His eyes hid behind dark glasses, though no light touched the room.
"He's not human," Flicker whispered, sipping a drink that trembled in his grip. "I saw him—just once. One step, four men down. Like wind wrapped in steel."
Balen said nothing.
Flicker leaned closer. "They say he doesn't bleed. That bullets curve around him. That his pendant burns when he's angry."
Balen's lips curved. "Good. Let the stories grow."
—
At midnight, the fire came.
A known safehouse—recently brought under Alaric's protection—was engulfed in flame. No alarms. No survivors. Only ashes.
On the interior wall, blackened by smoke, a single mark had been carved into the stone.
A face.
Featureless.
Eyeless.
Mouthless.
But where the eyes should've been—knife-thin slashes.
A whisper in red.
Vira arrived first. Alaric was already there, standing in the ruin, soot on his coat, the pendant at his chest glowing faintly.
"He's here," she murmured.
Alaric didn't blink.
"No," he said. "He's starting."
—
Back at the Astoria, tension finally cracked.
Vin slammed his fist against the table. "He needs protection, Balen. We've gone too far. Wraithe won't let this end with fire and silence."
Balen, calm as always, didn't rise. "He doesn't need protection. He needs space. He's building something none of us can see yet."
Vin's jaw tightened. "He's not just a man anymore. He's becoming... untouchable. And if he loses himself in the process—who brings him back?"
The door opened.
Alaric entered.
His presence silenced the room.
"I bring myself back," he said, voice flat. "Or I don't come back at all."
They stared at him. The glow of the pendant pulsed once—steady, resolved.
Then he turned and left without another word.
—
Later that night, alone in his quarters, Alaric stood before a mirror, shirt discarded, chest still rising and falling with the slow tempo of breathwork.
But it wasn't his face that caught his attention.
It was his back.
Faint—but there.
Glowing beneath the skin like ink woven with silver.
The Crest of Echoes.
A Vane mark not seen in generations. Said to only appear when a heir reached the third tier of legacy inheritance—when mind, body, and blood aligned into singular purpose.
The room was silent.
But his blood was not.
It sang.
He flexed a hand.
The air around his knuckles shifted, vibrating faintly with power unspoken.
"Soon," he whispered. "The ghosts that buried my name will learn what it means to be remembered."
Outside the Astoria, fog coiled around the building's base, rising like incense around a temple.
And somewhere across the city, in a dim room with no windows, a figure knelt in the dark.
He had no face.
But his voice was clear.
"He's ready," the Man with No Face whispered to the void. "Now... let him bleed."