At first, the light could have been mistaken for morning.
A soft haze rising from the low hills and catching in the tall grass.
But it did not move with the sun.
It pulsed with the breath of those still seated in the grove.
Kye watched the air shimmer between the trees—subtle, golden, tinged with a hue he'd never learned to name. Zeraphine pressed her palm to the earth beside the spiral, eyes closed. Her mouth did not move, but the grove answered anyway.
More people had come.
Not summoned.
Drawn.
They arrived without question. Sat in silence. Slept beneath trees that bowed closer each night. Ate beside the fireless stones that stayed warm by knowing what was needed.
No instructions had been given.
Yet things aligned.
The flame in the cradle glowed brighter now—not with hunger, but with response.
> ARTICLE SEVENTY-FIVE: The kind of light that stays is the kind born from witness, not action.
A child planted something at the foot of the spiral.
No one knew what it was.
But they watered it anyway.
Not to make it grow.
To let it try.
The Chronicle pulse, which had floated near Kye for days now without signal, flared. It shaped itself into a ring once again—this time nested around a hollow seed.
Not a system.
Not a broadcast.
A promise.
Kye stood.
Zeraphine joined him.
He raised the seed high. "No declarations," he said. "No oaths."
He placed it in the spiral.
And the island sang.
Soft.
Brief.
Like a chord struck in the moment before dawn.
And in that note, everyone knew:
They were not preparing to defend this place.
They were preparing to belong to it.