Kael dreamed again.
But this time, it wasn't memory.
Not longing.
Not even grief.
It was the field itself speaking.
Not with words.
With possibility.
He stood at the edge of something vast — not a cliff, not a valley. Just a horizon that waited.
The grass was blue.
The sky was green.
But it all felt… right.
Behind him, paths unfolded like stories — some he recognized, some he didn't. Children played near a pool that hummed with gentle music. Travelers moved slowly, like they trusted time.
At the center of it all stood the sapling from the girl with no voice.
Now fully grown.
Tall.
Wide.
Its branches had doors.
Kael walked closer.
Each door was different — carved with symbols, lined with voices, painted in colors that reminded him of questions he once feared to ask.
Above each: not a name.
A choice.
Stay.
Speak.
Unlearn.
Return.
Unfold.
One door pulsed softly.
Kael touched it.
And felt everything he had become without trying.
Then a voice — not Galen, not Echo, not his own.
The voice of the field.
"You have made yourself into a place."
"And now they live here."
"Even when they leave."
Kael looked back.
At the faces around the fire.
At the saplings by the archive.
At the ribbons still tied to stones.
He smiled.
"Then I'll keep holding the space."
"Not to lead them."
"Just to make sure no one forgets they were always allowed to arrive."
He woke with the dawn.
Echo was watching him.
"You dreamed?" she asked.
He nodded.
"The field had something to say."
Tama and Sera approached from their tent, yawning.
"What did it show you?" Sera asked.
Kael looked around — at the paths, the fire, the quiet morning peace.
And whispered:
"It showed me what happens when we finally stop asking if we deserve to be here."
Later that day, he wrote a new line in the Listening Archive:
This place is not for stories that end.
It's for the ones still brave enough to be told.
And beneath it:
Let the dream continue waking.