A Torch Against the Night

The silver masks worn by the Masks, Martial Empire’s elite soldiers, function as a symbol of the regime’s power, which is built on the violent suppression of individuality. To become a Mask is to be remade, to have one’s humanity stripped away and replaced with a hardened, unthinking loyalty to the Emperor. This is reflected by the properties of the masks: As the soldiers progress in their training, their Masks mold to their faces, and this quality is seen as being an indicator of one’s loyalty and quality as a soldier. For Elias Veturius, the mask represents a suffocating, false identity that he must shed to achieve personal freedom, and he takes it off at every available opportunity. As a result, his Mask has yet to completely mold to his face, something his fellow Masks take note of and distrust. His escape from Blackcliff is not just a physical flight but a rejection of the brutal persona the mask represents. After a bloody fight in the catacombs, Elias feels overwhelming shame when Laia sees the killer he was trained to be, recognizing it as “the wretched truth at my core” (13). This moment reveals that while the physical mask is gone, the internal struggle against its brutal conditioning remains his central conflict.