"A chisel does not lie. It only follows the hand. But the hand follows something deeper."
In the cradle of stone, where wind forgot to echo and light entered only with permission, Ananthu began to carve.
He had returned to the cave of faces not as a victor, but as a man burdened by vision.
Yuvan's broken mask sat in three parts before him — the sneer, the brow, the eye — like shards of a prophecy too dangerous to piece together. Yet, something within Ananthu compelled him.
He was not finished.
---
Outside, Vatayana stood without a throne. The court refused to crown another. No successor was declared. No war for the seat was fought. As though the land itself had grown weary of kings.
A silence deeper than fear settled — the silence of waiting.
Waiting for truth.
Waiting for the sculptor.
---
Ananthu lit the sacred fire at the heart of the cave. He placed the broken mask on black stone and whispered:
> "Let the stone show what time cannot hide."
His fingers brushed the fragments. For the first time in years, he trembled.
Not from age. Not from cold.
From knowing.
---
The carving began.
---
But this was no ordinary carving.
This was not a death mask.
This was a mirror of the living — something forbidden, something he himself once vowed never to do. For to carve the living before they meet death was to tempt fate to answer early.
And fate always answered bloodily.
---
Ananthu chose not marble, but obsidian — stone birthed from fire, sharp as memory, dark as truth.
The first stroke shattered silence.
With each cut, visions gripped him.
---
He saw Yuvan as a boy — eyes bright, chasing sparrows in the palace gardens, hiding stolen figs in his tunic. A child who knew laughter, who watched shadows but didn't yet fear them.
He carved that innocence into the cheekbones.
A single smooth curve. Unblemished.
---
He saw the boy grow into a prince — walking behind his uncle's funeral pyre, fists clenched. Not in grief, but hunger.
A flicker of envy. Of possession.
He carved that tension into the jawline — a tension not yet hardened, but waiting.
---
Then came the rule.
He saw the young king surrounded by mirrors, portraits, lies draped in silk.
He carved the brow to furrow — not in thought, but calculation.
He saw a crown that grew heavier with paranoia. Eyes that once sparkled now narrowed with distrust.
He shaped those eyes in shadowed depth — not evil, but afraid to be seen.
---
But it wasn't only the king he saw.
He saw himself.
In flashes.
Carving masks that told truths no one asked for. Truths that unseated rulers, started revolts, birthed martyrs.
He had never drawn a sword. But his chisel had spilled more royal blood than blades.
He carved his own guilt into the folds of Yuvan's neck — subtle, but present. A human mark.
Was it wrong to show truth?
Was it pride to believe he could?
---
Days passed without count.
He neither ate nor slept.
Only carved.
The obsidian drank light.
The mask drank memory.
Until it was almost complete.
---
But then — something changed.
The stone pushed back.
His hand froze.
The lines twisted.
The face in the stone began to change on its own.
Not into Yuvan.
Not into Ananthu.
Into something... else.
---
The cheeks cracked, as if aging rapidly.
The brow sank lower, as if the weight of centuries bent it.
The mouth split — not smiling, not scowling — but open, as if screaming without sound.
Ananthu stumbled backward.
The cave shuddered.
The other masks shook on the walls.
---
And then — the eyes.
Two hollow sockets, empty.
But he saw within them a multitude of faces — not just kings, not just tyrants — but people.
Mothers.
Soldiers.
Poets.
Children.
And beneath them all… a single face.
One not yet born.
One still watching.
The Face of Power — not as a person, but as an entity. A spirit. A curse.
It did not belong to one king.
It was all kings.
It was the desire to rule.
To command.
To be remembered.
To be feared.
To never be forgotten.
---
Ananthu fell to his knees.
Tears welled, not from sadness — but from recognition.
The face he had carved was not just Yuvan's future.
It was the truth of power itself.
---
When he rose, the mask was done.
It gleamed like wet ink.
Every line was a question.
Every shadow, a memory.
He did not name it.
He simply placed it beside the broken mask — the one Yuvan shattered — and left the cave.
---
Word spread that the sculptor had re-emerged.
But he came not to the court, nor to the city.
He went to the people.
---
He walked barefoot into the market square.
In his hands — wrapped in cloth — was the mask.
He did not speak.
He set it down at the foot of the broken palace gate, lit a single flame beside it, and sat in silence.
One by one, people gathered.
Not to kneel.
Not to praise.
To witness.
And as the cloth unfurled, and the obsidian mask met the daylight, the crowd fell still.
They saw in it their rulers.
But they also saw themselves.
The merchant saw the greed he justified.
The priest saw the pride behind his piety.
The rebel saw the violence he excused.
The child saw the fear he would inherit.
And no one spoke.
Only silence, and the flame beside the face, burning steady.
---
When dawn came, the mask was gone.
Some say Ananthu took it back.
Some say the people buried it beneath the roots of the first tree in the city.
Others say it walked away on its own.
---
But one truth remained:
The carving had revealed more than one man.
It had shown the architecture of power — built not from thrones, but from our own hands.
And the people began to ask themselves:
> What face do we wear when we obey?
> What mask do we carve into others?
> And if power is a mirror... what will it show next?
---
> Some masks are made to honor the dead.
Others are carved to awaken the living.