Chapter 23
Winter came quietly to the coast.
Snow dusted the cliffs. The sea moved slower, thick with chill and memory. The lighthouse stood as it always had — steadfast, silent — but inside, Elias felt the absence like a draft that slipped through old stone.
He wrote more now. Not only sketches and thoughts, but letters he never sent. Letters that began with:
"I saw the moon tonight and thought of the way you always paused to look up..."
One morning, a gull arrived with a ribbon tied to its leg. Elias smiled — Amira's playful way of saying she hadn't forgotten him.
The note it carried was simple:
Coming home. Wait for me at dusk.
So he did.
As the horizon bloomed in familiar violets and tangerines, Elias stood at the top of the lighthouse, watching the winding road below.
Then — there she was.
Amira, wind in her scarf, suitcase in one hand, journal in the other, walking the last hill like a woman returning not just to a place, but to herself.
He met her at the base of the stairs.
No words, not at first — just a long, quiet embrace. Her heartbeat against his chest. The scent of rain and something warmer.
Finally, she pulled back and said, "The city was loud. But you… you're still the softest sound I know."
He laughed softly. "And you — you're the echo I never wanted to end."
They stood in silence, the kind that says everything.
Above them, the light rotated — not because it had to, but because it could.
And below, the sea sighed like it had been holding its breath, waiting for this very moment.