While the intensive care monitor traced the steady, almost hypnotic line of Elia's induced sleep, his mind drifted beyond the white walls of the hospital, beyond the pain of burned flesh and the weight of the concrete that had crushed his lungs. He was no longer the wounded man Belinda had kissed; he was a liquid essence descending along the cliffs of Sant'Alessio, plunging into the waters of the Strait.
In this lucid dream, the sea was neither blue nor black. It was an ancient silver, as dense as mercury. Elia swam without effort, descending toward the depths where the currents intertwine into indissoluble knots. There, amidst the shattered columns of the new pier and the calcareous remains of the old one, he saw him.
Samuele was not an evanescent ghost. He appeared solid, dressed in his old corduroy jacket weathered by salt, sitting on a block of granite as if waiting for the end of a work shift. He smoked a cold pipe, and his eyes were the same color as the surf before a storm. Samuele—the man who had been the third vertex of their perfect triangle; the godfather who had held Azzurra in his arms on the day of her baptism, swearing to protect her from the world; the best friend who had shared every storm with Elia and every secret of that difficult land with Belinda.
"You're late, Elia," Samuele said, and his voice did not pass through ears but vibrated directly into the bones of his lifelong friend. "But at least you arrived in one piece."
"Samuele… the pier is destroyed. They used dynamite. Everything we dreamed of, everything you began to build with us, has turned back into mud and rubble." Elia felt the shame of one who had failed the duty of guardianship entrusted to him by his dearest brother.
Samuele shook his head, a bitter smile touching his lips—the same smile he wore when the fishing was poor but the wine was good. "You've always looked at the surface, just like those English engineers who wanted to measure the soul of the Strait with a ruler. Dynamite breaks concrete, but it cannot snap the pact we made before the sea. What fell had to fall, Elia. The concrete was an illusion of stability. It served to summon the wolves, for the wolves must emerge from the shadows to be defeated."
Elia moved closer, feeling the pressure of the water intensify. "Your goddaughter is fleeing, Samuele. Azzurra is with the boy, the descendant of Ward. Belinda says Oliver is burning. The Draunara is eating him alive, just as it tried to do to us."
Samuele stood up, pointing toward a dark spot beneath a crevice in the submerged reef. There, wedged between the rocks, something unnatural shimmered. It was not electrical light; it was a pulsing warmth that seemed like the very heart of the sea.
"Listen to me carefully, my brother. This is the final secret I took with me to the grave. When Ward and I fought years ago, it wasn't just over the pride of men. Ward wanted to build a Lighthouse that dominated the sea, a structure to govern the traffic. You and I, Elia, wanted a Lighthouse that understood it—a place to protect Azzurra and her gift. He took away the crystal lens from London, convinced that without it, my lantern would remain blind. But I didn't need his glass."
Samuele reached into the darkness and drew out a fragment of white marble—the same piece that had fallen from his plaque during the sabotage. But in the hands of the deceased godfather, the marble had become transparent, vibrating with an ancient force.
"The true lens of the Lighthouse is not made of silicon, Elia. It is made of intersecting sacrifice. What the English boy feels—the fire in his arms—is not Ward's curse against our land. It is the call of the counterweight. Ward left a debt of light here in Sicily, and Oliver has come to pay it. But he must not burn as punishment; he must burn as the ignition."
Samuele placed his spectral hand on Elia's forehead, and a vision overwhelmed the survivor: he saw Azzurra and Oliver on the ruined pier, surrounded by a storm that was not water, but pure shadow—the shadow of Erica, the shadow of the greed that had haunted Belinda. He saw his daughter dancing on the edge of the rubble, but her feet could find no purchase. She was about to fall.
"To defeat the Draunara," Samuele continued with the urgency of one who knows the time of the living is short, "Azzurra must not dance on top of the stones. She must dance within the pain. And Oliver must do more than just support her as a dance partner. He must be the fuse. Tell him that the fire he feels must be projected upward, not held in. He must stop protecting himself from the heat. He must become its conductor."
"But he will die, Samuele! It will consume him just as the sea did to you!" Elia cried out in the dream.
"No. Sacrifice is not death; it is transformation. I remained here to clear the way for them. If he accepts the fire, the Draunara will have nothing left to feed upon. She feeds on resistance, on fear, on secrets. If they offer themselves entirely to the light, the shadow will vanish because it will find no more walls upon which to reflect."
Samuele began to fade, pulled away by a cold current, but his gaze remained fixed on Elia with the love of old times. "Tell Belinda that our villa is not a refuge; it is an altar. When they arrive, do not try to stop the storm. Open the doors. Let the sea in. It is only when water and light mix without fear that the mud becomes fertile earth once more."
"Samuele! Wait!"
"Wake up, Elia. The boy is near the border. He smells my scent; he smells the iron and salt that bound us for a lifetime. Tell him that his surrogate godfather awaits him on the quay—not to judge him, but to finally hand him the blueprints for the lantern that his grandfather did not have the courage to finish."
Elia's eyes snapped open.
The ceiling of the intensive care unit was still there, but the hum of the machines now sounded like the distant song of a whale. He ripped off his oxygen mask with a strength the doctors would not have believed possible. The pain in his lungs was still agonizing, but it was no longer ash; it was steam demanding to be released.
Belinda, who had dozed off in her chair, leapt to her feet, her heart in her throat. "Elia! My God, Elia, what are you doing?"
He seized her wrist. His grip was iron—the grip of a fisherman who will not let go of the net. "Call… call the boy. Now. Samuele spoke to me."
"Samuele? Elia, you're delirious, he is..."
"He is here, Belinda! He is in the sea, he is beneath the pier!" he gasped, as a nurse came running into the room. "Call Oliver. Tell him he must not fear the burning. Tell him he is the lens. He must point the pain toward the sky, not toward his heart. And Belinda… prepare the house. Samuele says to open all the windows. The Draunara is coming, but she does not come to kill us. She comes to be baptized."
Belinda looked at her husband and saw in his eyes a realization that transcended medical reason. She understood that the bond between the two best friends had never been broken, not even by death. Samuele was still guiding his family.
As Elia was surrounded by doctors, Belinda stepped out into the corridor and looked toward the Strait. The sea was ceasing its retreat. The wave was returning, and with it, the destiny of those who had sought to illuminate the dark.
She took her phone and typed a message for Oliver. A few words, dictated by a departed soul and relayed by his best friend: "Do not hold back the fire. Become the light. Samuele awaits you on the pier. It is time to finish the lantern."
Thousands of miles away, in the darkness of a French road, Oliver's phone lit up. The boy reread the message while Azzurra, beside him, felt the cold of the Draunara tightening around her throat. Oliver felt a jolt of white heat explode in his bones, but this time he did not try to stifle it. He smiled, and for an instant, his irises shimmered with the same silver as the sea in Elia's dream.
"This is it, Azzurra," he whispered. "Your godfather has given us the green light."