Sera Vex sat in a candlelit chamber beneath Halron Vale, holding the final journal.
Caelum's handwriting had degraded—no longer sharp, no longer calculated. Just tired. Honest. Human.
The last page held no doctrine. No strategy. Just this:
"I named myself Dross because I was terrified of being Caelum. I built myth so no one would hear my grief. I reshaped truth because it wouldn't forgive me fast enough."
"To the child who still glows—your words healed a corner of me I thought would never burn clean. To Lyra, Elena, Evran: you were my conscience when I silenced mine."
"If Sera finds this—let her know I never wanted to be remembered. I wanted to disappear before the poems started rhyming like regret."
"And if the devil returns—tell her I finally understand. She was never seduction. She was memory asking if I still felt."
Sera read it once.
Then again.
Her breath caught—not from pain, but from recognition. This wasn't empire. This wasn't fire. It was a man unmaking his own myth because no one else could do it gently.
She closed the journal.
Stepped into daylight.
And in the plaza above, someone whispered:
"Caelum Dross asked to be forgiven. But memory does not forgive. It remembers."