The ship drifted under the night sky, the sea hushed like it too had been listening to the mermaid's voice.
Syra's song lingered in the air, soft and sorrowful. Not a triumphant tune, but one heavy with memory, like an old lullaby sung in an empty room.
The crew busied themselves with repairs, laughter rising now and then, like wind after a storm. But on the upper deck, beneath the stars, the adventurer sat alone, watching the horizon.
He held his hand out again, as if to summon the thread of light.
But it didn't come.
It was gone.
Not because it was lost, but because something inside him had changed.
"…It wasn't mine," he whispered to himself. "It was borrowed from hope."
Syra approached, now walking with light steps as if the sea carried her. Her voice was whole again, but she hadn't sung since the battle. She simply sat beside him, quiet.
"You don't speak much," she said gently.
"I'm afraid if I speak too much, I'll forget how to listen."
She smiled at that. "Then... may I speak for a while?"
He nodded.
Syra told him stories, of coral gardens, of music festivals beneath the waves, of her sister, who once sang lullabies and wore star-shaped earrings made of sea glass. Her voice trembled at times, but she never stopped.
The adventurer listened.
And for the first time in many days, he felt something new.
Not a memory.
But a seed.
A start.
"Will you stay?" Syra asked after a long pause. "Velmareth could use someone like you."
He looked at the city far away, its towers twinkling like candle flames. Then at his hands.
"I don't know who I am yet," he said. "But I'm starting to understand who I don't want to be."
She tilted her head.
"I don't want to walk away when someone's fading. I don't want to be silent when there's a song that needs remembering."
He stood, his gaze distant but firmer now.
"I'm not done searching. But maybe I'm done running."
Syra stood too. Her smile was warm, though her eyes shimmered with something bittersweet.
"Then let me give you something before you go," she said.
She removed the silver chain around her neck. Hanging from it was a single sea-glass earring shaped like a star.
"My sister's," she whispered. "It was the last piece I kept."
He reached out slowly. "I can't take that."
"You're not taking," she said. "You're carrying it forward."
She fastened it around his wrist instead.
"For songs that were never finished. For voices that still need to be heard."
The adventurer lowered his gaze.
Then looked to the sea.
And he smiled, not just politely, but honestly.
Like something inside him had remembered how.
He left before dawn, walking barefoot across the shallow shore, his cloak damp, the sea behind him singing low.
He didn't look back.
But from the deck of the ship, Syra watched him until he was gone.
And though he never knew it, she sang one final verse that morning, just for him.
A song that wandered with the wind.
A song that said:
"Even the lost will find their way… if someone remembers their name."
And in the distance, as the sun kissed the sky, the adventurer walked with lighter steps.
The star-shaped charm at his wrist caught the light.
And for the first time since he awoke beneath the stars…
He felt a little less empty.
And a little more alive.