There was no line between island and sky.
Not today.
The air shimmered with warmth, but not heat. The clouds floated without motion, and the horizon blurred—less a boundary than a gentle unknowing.
People stood along the ridgeline, not in formation, but together. Children leaned against tree trunks that had grown overnight into the shape of leaning spines. Elders sat on stones not yet named. Some drew spirals in the dirt. Others simply breathed.
Kye and Zeraphine sat facing the sea.
No ships approached.
No signals called.
The Chronicle pulses rotated in wide arcs above the gathering.
One dipped.
Hovered.
Settled above the open spiral.
> ARTICLE EIGHTY-THREE: The horizon that doesn't ask for arrival is the one that welcomes return without explanation.
Zeraphine broke the quiet. "It's been long enough."
Kye turned to her. "For what?"
She pointed—not outward, but inward, toward the place between the spiral paths.
"For the people who didn't know they'd already made it home."
And as if summoned by the truth of that word, a shape appeared.
Not vessel.
Not person.
A shadow of return.
It shimmered at the horizon. The mist parted, not from force but from permission. A memorylight drifted into view.
A face that once left.
A step that once hesitated.
Someone coming back.
The crowd did not cheer.
They made room.
A boy stood and offered his hand.
A girl stepped aside without question.
The Chronicle flared once.
And the record did not continue.
It welcomed.