CHAPTER 75: THE PACT UNDONE

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.