They crowned me in silence.

And buried me in noise.

The day I fell, the people rejoiced.

“The fire is out,” they said. “The Harbinger is gone.” Even my own right hand turned from Lucien, my Disciple…to Nero, the traitor.

He sold my gospel for static.

Stole my church’s credits.

Poisoned the well and spat in the chalice.

And when the sanctuary split…

When the gold slipped from my waist…

You, Caído

You were already there.

The first to pin the Prophet.

Not when the title was at stake

but when my pride was.

A loss that cracked the corner.

You were the hammer.

He was the chisel.

And I…..

I was the stone.

But Psalm one-eighteen, verse twenty-two: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”

They forgot me. But the Lord did not.

I was not broken.

I was not cast out.

I was set aside.

Chosen, Sanctified and Prepared.

Not to reign but to remind.

You call yourself the Dragon.

A symbol of chaos.

Wings spread wide across a burning sky.

But dragons fall.

You took no belt from me.

You took something far greater

certainty.

You placed doubt in the bones of a man who was made of scripture.

But I have returned.

Not for vengeance.

Not for gold.

But for order.

To set the record straight. To bring the crooked back to the plumb line to lay the foundation again.

I am not seeking a second chance.

I am the second coming.

Your legacy is stained with ash.

Mine is written in stone.

Your fire may flicker.

But I was forged in the flame.

And now I return not as the Champion but as the Cornerstone.

So strike me again if you must.

Cleave your name into my skin.

Mark me with another scar.

But know this, I do not bleed to lose. I do not return to fall.

I return because Heaven has remembered me.

And through me, Arcadia will remember too.

The Church shall rise again.

The Disciples will be gathered.

The foundation shall be relaid.

And the name Caído…shall fall with the rest.

Thus saith the Lord. The forgotten stone stands. The record is made clean and the Dragon is grounded.

Amen.