---
Beneath the pale roots of the moon-tree, Kaelith stood alone.
The sanctum pulsed with living memory—walls formed from bark and crystal, runes etched by hands long turned to dust. The Dawnbound Circle had left him in silence, their part in this moment already sealed. All that remained now was the choice. And Kaelith had already made it.
Before him lay the mask.
Gold leaf over bone. Inset with gems that once belonged to the first seers. A relic once used in vision trials—sacred, forbidden. Now corrupted.
Now his.
He lifted it.
The Lunavynx purred beside him, its tail flicking through the air like a silver thread unraveling fate. The moment Kaelith placed the mask against his face, it flared with cursed light—not harsh, but mournful. As if the mask itself wept for what it must show.
And Kaelith saw.
He saw the Six enter the inner city, their hearts full of fracture.
He saw Aelric fall to his knees in the garden of ashes, weeping for something even he could not name.
He saw Vaelorith scream as his magic turned against him. Selene shatter her hourglass to halt time. Lyra draw her last arrow not in defense—but regret.
He saw blood. Fire. A sky torn open.
He saw himself, at the end of all things—standing on the edge of the world, begging the stars to let him undo what had been done.
And he smiled.
"Clarity," he whispered, voice echoing through the hollow chamber. "This is what they feared."
His fingers traced the mask's edge—hot to the touch, a crown of agony—and he let it fuse to his face. Light bled from its seams, warping the sanctum around him into something almost divine.
Kaelith no longer walked in possibility.
He walked in certainty.
---
Elsewhere, in the ruins of the temple, the Six stood regrouped.
The aftermath of illusion still clung to them, a film of doubt and memory. But something had shifted. Forgiveness had been offered. Oaths remembered. And in the center of the temple, where mirrors once whispered, Aelric knelt before a shallow basin of water—watching stormlight swirl in the reflection.
"He's ahead of us," Selene murmured, stepping beside him. "His power's accelerating."
"I felt him," Lyra added. "In my veins. Like a thread tugging the wrong way."
"We'll face him soon," Aelric said, rising. "But not with fear. No more illusions. No more ghosts."
He turned to them all. "From here, every step leads to the end."
Vaelorith's eyes glowed faintly. "Then let's meet the end on our terms."
---
Back beneath the moon-tree, Kaelith stepped onto the petals of silver ash that formed his sanctum's floor.
The mask burned.
The future roared in his ears like a storm of prophecy, unrelenting.
But his voice was calm. Soft. Almost tender.
"Let them come," he said. "Let them see what they made of me."
The Lunavynx leapt to his shoulder, purring like thunder.
And outside, the wind shifted—as if the city itself inhaled before the plunge.
---