The Vessel Mirrinth dropped from Driftroot like a tear from a silent face.
Not fast. Not loud.
Just inevitable.
Inside its retrofitted cockpit, Kye watched the shallow stars vanish one by one, each drowned by the thickening ink of the Oceanic Shroud. A dark so absolute it defied contrast. The Chronicle flame on his wrist dimmed automatically, matching the Mirrinth's shift from external pulse to internal breath.
"Driftroot's signal is thinning," Zeraphine murmured. "Still intact, but... as if it's choosing to let us go."
"Not abandon," Kye said. "Permission."
The Shroud didn't block signal. It absorbed it. Not hostile. Not empty.
Hungry.
But not to consume.
To know.
At three thousand meters below orbital footing, external sensors ceased to return coherent imagery. Their hull was caressed by compression waves—too ordered for current, too erratic for weather. Instead, the Mirrinth floated into something that wasn't resistance.
It was recognition.
Inside the cockpit, the resonance panel activated unprompted.
> "Surface detachment complete."
"Memory channel stable."
"Chronicle permissions suspended: contextual assimilation in effect."
Zeraphine's fingers hovered over the override key.
Kye stopped her with a gentle touch. "Let it speak."
The walls shimmered.
Then liquified.
Not physically.
Perceptually.
Textures of half-formed rooms began to blur through the Mirrinth's interior—shadows of kitchens, fragments of corridors, a whisper of a lullaby hummed without melody. These weren't hallucinations.
They were receiving.
The Shroud wasn't transmitting.
It was translating.
"Are these our memories?" Zeraphine asked, stunned.
"No," Kye whispered. "They're... remembering us."
The Vessel turned sideways of its own accord, following not current, not signal—but familiarity.
A door appeared on the right wall. Not mechanical. Not operable.
Just a shape.
Inviting.
"Should we go through?" Zeraphine asked.
"We already have," Kye replied, opening his hand.
The Chronicle lit white—not burning, not guiding.
Following.
> ARTICLE FIFTY-NINE: Descent is not falling. It is arriving into recognition.
The Mirrinth passed a layer of distortion so dense it stilled sound.
All they could hear was their breath.
And then—
A pulse.
Heartbeat.
Not theirs.
The Shroud had one.
And it was remembering someone. Something. Them.