Chapter 25
Spring returned with salt in the wind and wildflowers on the cliffs.
The lighthouse bloomed too — not with petals, but with people. Those who had heard of the place where lost names were remembered. Where grief met light. Where love wasn't loud, but lasting.
Amira stood before a small gathering on the lawn, reading the closing words of her book — Echoes Through the Violet Dusk — now bound and real, held in the hands of strangers who felt like kin.
Elias stood quietly at the back, as always. Watching her. Rooted.
"We are made of tides and memory," she read.
"Of names whispered in wind and stars we dare to name for ourselves.
Some things the sea takes. Some it returns.
But love — love is what the ocean cannot drown."
The audience rose in quiet applause. A few tears. A few embraces.
Later, as dusk stretched across the sky in its familiar shades of violet and gold, Amira climbed the lighthouse steps one last time that day. Elias followed.
They stood at the top, watching the horizon blink with coming night.
"I thought I came here to escape," she said. "But I came here to remember."
"You did more than remember," Elias said, placing a hand over hers. "You turned silence into story."
The beam of the lighthouse rotated once… twice… steady.
And then Amira said, not with hesitation, but with quiet wonder:
"We've lit something the world can follow now."
He nodded. "And if it ever fades…"
"We'll light it again."
Together, they looked out at the sea — not as something to fear, but something sacred. A mirror. A witness.
And as the last light of day slipped beneath the waves, the lighthouse stood — not as an ending, but as a beginning.
Still.
Steady.
Lit.