The Waves of Light did not begin on the beach.
They began weeks earlier, quietly, in kitchens that smelled of salt and bread, in workshops where bamboo dust clung to skin, in infirmaries where windows stayed open so lanterns could later be seen from beds. The festival was never announced with trumpets. It moved the way Midori-Iro itself had always moved—person to person, island to island, carried by hands that understood why they carried what they did.
On Kapua, where the sea speaks first, Meleko woke before dawn to the sound of waves breathing against the reef. He lifted the spiral conch from its cloth and pressed it to his ear, not to listen to the sea inside it, but to remember how his grandmother once taught him to listen to people the same way. He polished the shell until the pale pink veins of sea-glass caught the light. Before leaving, he knelt beside her mat. She could no longer walk the shoreline, but she placed her hand on the shell, eyes closed.
“The sea still listens,” she told him.
Meleko nodded, feeling the weight of that responsibility settle into his chest.
Far inland on Hinahu, Koaʻana wrapped the Ember Stone in cord still warm from the forge. He had slept beside it for three nights, letting its heat sink into his bones. He visited the veterans first—men and women whose bodies remembered war better than peace. Each pressed their palms to the stone, flinching, then breathing through it. When Koa left, the stone was cooler, but heavier, carrying what had been given to it.
On Hikari-no-Ashi, Aimi stood barefoot in her workshop, sanding the bamboo prism until it bent sunlight into quiet rainbows. She carried it to her father’s room and set it near the window. When morning came, light fractured across the walls like soft laughter. Her father laughed too—surprised, delighted. She left with tears on her cheeks and the Prism Reed tucked against her heart.
The symbols began to move.
They did not march. They visited.
On Moeraki’s docks, Talo draped the Salt Net over the shoulders of dockworkers too sick to walk, tying knots slowly so each person could see themselves inside it. On Lānui, Hinaʻe carried the silent drumhead through warrior halls where no drum had been struck in years, reminding them that restraint was its own song.
Ren of Kōravai carried the obsidian mirror not toward crowds, but toward windows. He set it where the dying could see themselves one last time reflected in sunset. Mei of Tefiti rang the Sound Bowl once in every home she entered, letting the tone linger long enough for people to feel less alone.
On Nāhele, Liko watered the Leaf Crown before placing it on the brow of a bedridden forester. On Kaihala, Ione guided blind fingers across etched stars. On Uluvai, Pua filled her offering bowl with whatever remained after feeding her neighbors—and somehow, it was always enough.
The procession crossed water and forest, stone and sand. When someone could not walk, the symbols came to them. No one was left unblessed.
By the time the sixteen symbols reached Midoro, they carried fingerprints, tears, laughter, breath.
At the Imperial Beach Home, the Eternal Lantern waited unlit.
Children stood at its base.
Aroha felt the tide through her feet and whispered timing to the others. Keahi recited the order of the symbols without looking. Yumi watched the lantern’s glass, tracking how the last light of day curved along its edge.
Queen Adriana and her siblings arrived without crowns. They touched each symbol only long enough to acknowledge it. No speeches were made. No claims were taken.
When the final symbol was placed, Adriana stepped back.
“This is yours,” she said simply.
The children lit the lantern.
Light did not explode. It traveled—soft, deliberate—across water, reflecting from wave to wave, island to island. Sixteen symbols. One breath.
From beds, from docks, from doorways, Midori-Iro watched its light return to itself.
And for two weeks, the waves remembered.