He sets the coin gently into a cradle of woven light.

  His hands hover too long—one heartbeat, two—then he forces himself to let go.

  Valuun steps forward, moving like a ghost on the wind, and rests a hand on Arthur’s shoulder.

  “Shall I begin?”

  Arthur barely moves, nodding once.

  Valuun spreads his palms across the living console. It comes to life beneath his touch.

  A ripple moves through the room—not seen so much as felt, a change in pressure. Arthur’s ears pop.

  Signal threads flare, then settle into a synchronized, pulsing rhythm.

  Bioluminescent stones bloom across the console.

  Valuun reads them—an impossible, breathing language.

  “Stability increasing… twenty… twenty-one… twenty-two.”

  Arthur’s eyes stay fixed on the coin drive.

  He listens for the only voice he knows in every quiet moment—

  but silence answers him.

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  No voice.

  No violin.

  No soft shift in the air where she once lived.

  He waits.

  Hoping.

  Nothing changes.

  His shoulders tremble once—then he locks it down.

  “Get a hold of yourself, Arthur,” he mutters. “This has to work. It’s going to work.”

  ---

  Time mocks him.

  The longer he waits, the slower everything becomes.

  He wanders the curved corridors of living bone, searching for something—anything—to distract him.

  Minutes stretch like days.

  Light breathes in strange, unfamiliar rhythms.

  Inside his head, he waits for her laugh.

  Her quip.

  A single note of violin.

  Silence answers—clean, absolute, cruel.

  A bench grows seamlessly from the wall.

  Arthur sits—elbows on knees, head bowed.

  The air hums faintly, like a machine behind a door he cannot open.

  He taps the side of his head—soft, then softer.

  “Sarah?”

  Silence gathers like fog on a spring morning in the mountains.

  “Say something.”

  It doesn’t.

  The quiet expands, filling reaches of him he has never allowed empty.

  Arthur drifts.

  Untethered.

  Living structures respond to his presence—petals unfurling, pathways offering themselves—

  but he passes without seeing any of it.

  His own footsteps echo too loudly, like they belong to someone following him.

  He rubs at his temples, as though pressure might coax her voice back.

  A thin, humorless laugh escapes him.

  “You always hated when I got quiet…”

  He steps onto an overlook above a wetland glowing in slow blues and greens.

  Long-winged birds drift through mist like lost balloons, searching for something unseen.

  Arthur grips the railing until his knuckles pale.

  “I don’t know how to be without you.”

  He leans back, breath shaking.

  “I don’t even know who I am… without you listening.”

  He lowers his forehead to the rail, tapping it softly.

  ---

  Below, a low dome glows—rings of soft light circling as if breathing.

  Arthur descends slowly and enters.

  He sits cross-legged at the center.

  Inhale.

  Hold.

  Release.

  Inhale.

  Hold.

  Release.

  Nothing.

  Only the unending roar of absence, collapsing inward.

  He rocks forward, palms pressed to the living floor—

  a man at the edge of prayer.

  “I need you to come back.”

  ---

  Hours later, after wandering Linthera in widening, directionless loops, Arthur reaches his quarters—

  a womb-quiet room.

  The walls pulse with a faint, reassuring cadence he refuses to accept.

  He lies on his side, facing a smooth curve of bone-white.

  Eyes open.

  Then slow.

  One tear falls.

  Then another.

  He does not move.

  Silence.

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