Jude exhaled. "I don't know what comes next, another shape, another node, deeper uncharted places. But I know this: we named ourselves as a single force. We walked beyond fear and kept our minds. Tonight, we rest. Tomorrow, we wake, named, present, together. Forever."
He extended his hand. Grace took it. Lucy took Grace's. A chain of hands formed around him. Eleven hearts, entwined.
Branches overhead creaked in quiet applause. The watchers watched outside the walkways and torches stayed lit. Fire burned.
They slept almost immediately, slipping into blankets, bodies trembling, not from cold, but from final relief. Beneath them, the island hummed low.
They remained. They remembered. They belonged. And that was enough for now.
