His voice was hoarse.
Cracked.
Barely louder than a breath drifting through reeds.
But to Thalindra, it rang like a bell at dawn.
"Thalindra."
Her name.
Spoken not in memory, but recognition.
She knelt beside him, water coiling around them like a blessing.
Laeron lay against Rowan's chest, his eyes unfocused, skin pale where coral scars still shimmered across his arms. The vines that had held him had left trails of light—a map of the Song burned into his body.
Kaelen kept watch, blades out, even though the Bloom Matron had vanished with the tide.
Rowan gently lowered Laeron. "He's not all here yet."
Thalindra placed a hand to his chest.
His pulse—slow, steady—matched hers.
"He will be."
They stayed in Tir Kalthis for three days.
No more tideborn appeared.
No more voices called.
The city itself began to rest, its spiraling coral blooms dimming from the fever-bright blue to a calmer, warmer green. What had once been a prison of echo was now a reef slowly healing from its wound.
Laeron slept most of the time.
But each night, he hummed.
A tune that didn't match anything Thalindra had taught him.
A fragment.
A chorus waiting for its verse.
On the fourth day, he woke fully.
His voice was raw. "You sealed the Gate."
"I did," Thalindra replied.
"And you came here. For me."
She smiled, eyes damp. "You're part of the Song. We're not whole without you."
He sat up slowly, wincing. "I heard her for so long. The Bloom Matron. She wasn't evil. Just… tired. Tired of being forgotten."
Thalindra nodded. "So she tried to root herself into the deepest thing she could find."
Laeron reached out, and she took his hand.
"You pulled me back," he said.
"No," she said softly. "We pulled each other forward."
That night, beneath a reef of silver blossoms, the Circle gathered—fully.
Rowan.
Kaelen.
Elaen, who had journeyed from the Hollow Root Grove.
Eryndis, who rode the wind-songs of the Scar.
Veyren, silent but steady.
Laeron, whole again.
And Thalindra.
Leafweaver.
Verdant Soul.
They sang a Song not of war.
Not of healing.
But of beginning.
And the ocean listened.
Above them, far away, stars began to fall—slow arcs of flame carving the sky.
And across the land, sleeping ruins stirred.
The Song was whole now.
Which meant it was ready to carry something new.