The boat sailed through the fissured bay for a full day and night. The polar day's light hung like a translucent curtain across the sky, refusing to set or fully brighten. Karim slept soundly beside the small stove in the cabin, tiny ice crystals clinging to his eyelashes, trembling faintly with each breath. Samira sat by the porthole, watching the ice crack beneath the hull, refreezing, like time folding and unfolding itself over and over.
The captain spoke little, only murmuring the wind direction when changing sails: *North-northwest. Force three. Minus seventeen.* The notch in his left ear caught the cold light like a moon with a bite taken out, sometimes reflecting the green lamp's glow from the mast. The green lamp, given by the old man, held Karim's frozen apple blossom petal sealed within its glass. Now, it glowed with a faint pink halo, as if the petal continued to grow within the ice.
On the morning of the third day, the wind died abruptly. A vast, curved shadow appeared on the ice field—a natural ice dome. Its vault was studded with vertical icicles, like inverted stalactites, or countless frozen exclamation points. The captain moored the boat at the dome's edge and pointed to its apex. "There. The echo is clearest."
Samira carried Karim onto the ice. Her steps crunched with delicate fractures, like treading on countless tiny shards of glass. Inside the dome was brighter, the icicles refracting light into rainbows, like a cathedral frozen by the aurora. At its exact center stood an ice-carved table. On it rested an unlit lamp, its base hollow, its shade etched with a tiny "&".
The captain handed her flint and a small vial of whale oil, his voice barely a whisper. "Leave the echoes in the fire. Only then will the lamp light."
Samira poured the whale oil into the lamp's base and gently placed the wooden bird shard—now no larger than her thumbnail—onto the oil's surface. A strike of the flint, and a flame *snapped* to life. The wood shard gave soft *pops*, like the heartbeat of a long-awaited reunion. The flame was pale green, like the aurora's blood, or the last ember in Ilyas's ashes.
As the flame ignited, the icicles began to resonate. First came a thin thread of sound—their mother's humming lullaby. Then Karim's laughter, Ilyas's cough, the orchard woman stirring honey with a spoon, the rain drumming on the tin roofs of the camp… Layer upon layer of sound, yet without noise, filtered free of impurities by the ice, leaving only purest tenderness.
Karim opened his eyes. The green flame reflected in his pupils. He reached out. His fingertip passed through the fire—no burn, only a gentle warmth. "Sis," he whispered, "Mama says… *Further North*."
Samira took his hand and placed both on the lampshade. The flame suddenly divided—one tendril winding around her wrist, another around Karim's finger, like threads reconnecting. Water began to drip from the icicles at the dome's apex. Drops landed on the glass shade with a clear *ping*, like the sound of a distant postmark.
The captain stood at the dome's entrance, his back to the flame, his shadow stretched long. He murmured a final set of coordinates: *70°N, 35°E*—a place with no land, only pack ice and polar night, yet beneath a curtain of constant aurora. He finished, turned, and walked back to the boat, like a shadow whose task was done.
The flame in the lamp dwindled. The wooden shard burned to ash, leaving only a glowing ember. Samira picked it up with her fingertips and pressed it into the center of the ice table. Ember met ice with a soft *hiss*, instantly freezing into a tiny black star. Words slowly formed on the ice surface:
Northward. Northward. Until echoes become names.
She lifted Karim and took a last look at the ice dome. As the flame died, every icicle in the vault ignited simultaneously, like a thousand lamps lit as one, like countless postcards finally delivered. They blazed for only a second before silence reclaimed the dome. Only the tiny black star remained, burning quietly within the ice—an ember that would never die.
Samira turned and walked towards the boat. The wind rose again, carrying the lingering warmth of the echoes from the ice lamp, a silent farewell on its breath:
Northward. Further North.