The scent of damp earth and something sickly sweet – rot, perhaps, or embalming fluid – assaulted Taryath first. Her chest pressed against a satin lining, a strange tightness across her body. Then came the sound: a rhythmic thrum, like heavy drops striking stone, punctuated by muffled sobs. Rain. A funeral. Her eyes snapped open to pitch gloom. Cold panic pierced her ribs. She was alive, though her last memory remained the crunch of girders, the screech of locked brakes, the crushing slab of a falling skyscraper. Not this velvet-lined box. She pushed upward. Slender, soft palms met timber above. A lid. A burial chest. She dragged in air through clenched teeth, her throat pitching high. She thrashed, hammering her knuckles and tearing her nails against the lacquered grain until the box groaned and tilted on its bier. “The Shai’s lament! She stirs!” a voice rasped, thick with fear and a strange, guttural accent. “The necromancer’s curse! She lives!” Shrieks erupted beyond the timber. Mourners wuffled into frantic wails. Taryath drove her heels and shoulders up together. The plank cracked, letting through a sliver of pale glare that lit bone-like reliefs on the underside. Rings of unfamiliar brass banded her pale fingers against petrified wood. These were not her hands. This was not her. The lid burst open with a shriek of tortured timber. Taryath gasped, sucking in air that smelled of ancient stone and too many lilies. She sat bolt upright, clawing her way out of the confines. A crypt. A vast, echoing chamber carved from obsidian-dark stone, lit by sputtering ash-steel lamps. Figures draped in dark shrouds recoiled, their faces a mask of horror. A priest, his face etched with terror, dropped a smoking censer, its brass clattering across the mosaic floor. Her gaze swept over the scene. Her body. It was slender, draped in an elaborate funeral shroud of crimson and black, intricately embroidered with silver-thread serpents. Her hair, a cascade of dark, heavy curls, fell over shoulders that were not her own. She looked down at her hands again, then touched her face. Smooth skin, a sharp jawline, high cheekbones. This face. It was the face of Lady Vespera, the doomed villainess from ‘Chronicles of the Sunken Ziggurat’ – the treacherous shadow-guard who had tried to assassinate the Hegemon, only to be caught and executed, her death triggering the war that consumed the protagonist. This was her face. Her stolen face. “A false awakening!” screeched an elderly woman, her voice shrill with fear. “The Blood-weaving failed! The Hegemon will have our heads!” Before Taryath could process the impossible truth, the heavy stone doors of the crypt shuddered. A dull *thump* vibrated through the floor, followed by the metallic rasp of Ash-steel blades being drawn. The mourners screamed, scattering like startled desert hares. A guttural shout ripped through the air, then the sickening wet sound of a body hitting stone. Killers in livery. They had arrived not to mourn, but to ensure the corpse stayed butchered. Even in the novel, Lady Vespera’s burial was interrupted by blades sent to prevent any blood-weaving restoration. Only, the plot had never accounted for an impostor inside the skin. She reacted on instinct, dropping flat into the velvet bed to feign death. A heavy boot thudded against the edge of the open casket. A shadow loomed over her, reeking of sweat and old blood. “Confirmed still?” a rough voice grunted, laced with the Sand-tongue accent of the Hegemon’s elite guard. “No tricks this time, Hakan.” “No, General Kesh. She is cold,” another voice replied, closer. Taryath felt a prickling sensation on her neck, the unmistakable chill of a blade’s tip. She held her breath, every muscle screaming for her to move, to fight. This body might be unfamiliar, but the primal urge to survive was hers, forged in the concrete jungle she’d escaped. The blade traced a line down her throat, barely breaking the skin. She fought the urge to flinch. The voice above her chuckled, a dry, rattling sound. “A shame. She was a pretty thing, for a traitor.” The blade pressed harder, a promise of pain, of finality. This was it. Discovered before she even understood what was happening. Suddenly, the crypt’s far wall exploded inward. Not with fire or magic, but with a raw, tearing force. Stone shrieked, dust billowed, and a monstrous bellow reverberated through the vaults. The killers cursed, whirling toward the breach. Taryath seized the gap, rolling out onto the flags and snatching a fallen sentry's Ash-steel dagger. The hilt sat light and balanced in her grip. She lunged aside. A six-legged mass of scales and phosphorescent eyes squeezed through the breach. The crypt breached directly into the subterranean Labyrinth of Murgal. Escape. Survive. Dodging fleeing mourners, Taryath darted toward the jagged breach. The beast snapped a soldier in two across its jaws. She slid past its lashing tail and plunged straight into the black corridor beyond. The air turned stagnant, tasting of copper and saltpetre. Blind void pressed in from every direction. She traced the slick masonry with one hand while keeping the dagger leveled, listening to the steady plink of seepage and claws clicking against gravel. She ran, stumbled, and ran again, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs. The fear of what was behind her warred with the terror of what lay ahead. This was the Labyrinth, a monster-infested death trap designed to consume the weak. Just as the novel described. Her boot snagged, pitching her forward onto broken flags. Her palms slid into sticky sludge that reeked of butchery. She recoiled, gagging as her fingers struck jagged ribs and splintered femurs. Beneath the heap of slaughtered remains lay a small, motionless silhouette. She held still, squinting into the gloom. A whimper, raw and animalistic, broke the silence. The shape shifted. Not dead. There was a sound, a low, guttural growl, then a rustle of coarse fabric. A movement too fast for her eyes to track. Before she could react, a small, feral figure lunged from the oppressive dark, pinning her to the stone with a jagged bone blade pressed tight against her throat.

The Stolen Face