Raegor fell, but not like we expected.
He didn't explode. Didn't fade into dust. He wept.
"I tried to stop it," he said. "I really did."
"What did you try to stop?" I asked.
"The cycle," he whispered. "The shard. The Codex. The fire. You don't end it by winning. You end it by refusing to play."
He handed me something. A stone. Black and cracked.
"The original pact."
It pulsed in my hand—then crumbled.
And I understood: the First Pact wasn't a promise. It was a prison. A way to force meaning onto a chaotic world.
Lilith watched it disintegrate.
"That's it, then," she said.
But it wasn't.
It never is.
