The city was called Halron Vale.
Built on reclaimed land, cradled between two rivers. It bloomed with grassroots law, communal spells, and public education written by artists. No centralized power. No mythic figure. Just shared resilience.
Which made it dangerous.
Caelum studied its systems—perfect in imperfection. Transparent. Organic. The kind of place his Quiet Creed couldn't overwrite. Its independence mocked every doctrine he'd built.
He drafted the plan.
Cultural destabilization. Budget cuts veiled as reforms. A scandal conjured through misinformation—a mayor accused with fabricated evidence. Algorithms flooded their networks. New symbols suggested doubt.
But then—
A child.
Eleven. Named Alren. Wrote a poem on the city's forum:
"Truth feels like walking home and knowing someone waited."
It spread faster than any of Caelum's directives.
He read it twice.
Then again.
And something inside him didn't crack—it remembered.
He traced the child's history: public school, free meals, parents who taught empathy through story. The same world Caelum once begged for. The world he was now erasing.
The devil appeared mid-plan, gleaming.
"Burn it. Or I take something you still haven't named."
Caelum hesitated.
She leaned close.
"They chose love over legend. That insults you."
He whispered, "No. It reminds me."
She paused.
He turned away.
The plan proceeded. But slower. Gentler. Enough to unsettle, not to raze. Enough for Halron Vale to feel the cold—and fight.
Alren's second poem read:
"We don't vanish when they forget us. We glow."
Caelum saved it.
Didn't share it.