I move closer, one tentacle gesturing toward the control panel. “Perhaps check the manual rotation override.”
She gives me another suspicious look but turns her attention to the controls. That’s when she notices the small wooden box I placed there earlier, its dark polished surface incongruous among the mechanical components.
“What’s this?” she asks, reaching for it.
I remain silent, my skin illuminating with patterns that reflect my racing heartbeats.
She lifts the hinged lid, then freezes. Inside, nestled on a cushion of deep blue velvet, lies a ring—platinum band inset with a pearl flanked by small sapphires. The pearl has an unusual opalescence, shifting colors in the light filtering through the lens.
“Roark…” she whispers, looking from the ring to me.
I reach forward to lift the ring from its box, holding it delicately between two fingers. “I recovered this from a shipwreck seventy-eight years ago,” I tell her, my voice carrying that deep resonance that emerges when emotion threatens to overwhelm me. “A luxury liner that sank in a storm off Nova Scotia. I’ve kept it safe all these years.”
Her eyes widen, storm-gray and luminous in the golden light.
“Something told me to preserve it, as if I somehow knew it would one day serve a greater purpose than sitting forgotten on the ocean floor.” I extend the tentacle holding the ring toward her. “I’ve kept this treasure safe, knowing someday I’d find someone who shines brighter than any beacon.”
Ashe stares at the ring, then at me, her expression a complex mixture of shock and something deeper.
“In my century of existence, I never imagined finding harbor in another soul,” I continue. “Yet here you are—my lighthouse in human form, guiding me home when I thought no such place existed for one like me.”
I’m not following any human script, no carefully rehearsed proposal. My words come from depths I’ve only begun to explore in these months with her.
“Ashe Morgan,” I say, her name reverberating through the circular room. “Will you navigate the future’s uncharted waters with me? As partners, as equals?”
She reaches out with trembling fingers, not for the ring but for the hand holding it. Her fingers stroke across my sensitive skin, a touch so gentle it sends ripples of light cascading across my body.
“You ridiculous, wonderful creature,” she whispers. “You lured me up here under false pretenses.”
“I deemed it a necessary strategic deception,” I reply, the tension in my voice betraying my nerves.
She laughs then, the sound bouncing off the glass and metal surrounding us. “Yes,” she says, her voice clear and certain despite the tears gathering in her eyes. “Yes, of course I’ll marry you.”
My tentacles move of their own accord, lifting her off the ground in a gentle embrace as I slide the ring onto her finger. It fits perfectly.
“It’s beautiful,” she says, examining the pearl’s unusual shimmer. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Abyssal pearl,” I explain. “Formed in the deepest trenches, where pressure and darkness create something entirely unique. They’re exceptionally rare.”
“Like you,” she whispers, leaning forward to press her forehead against mine.
Above us, the lighthouse lens continues its steady rotation, a constant amid change. Below, Cape Tempest carries on with its afternoon routines, unaware of the moment transpiring in the lamp room. And between us, a promise takes form—as solid as the lighthouse itself, yet as fluid as the sea from which I came.
The light sweeps around us once more, a full revolution completed. One cycle ended, another begun. The perfect symmetry of it strikes me—how lighthouses mark both endings and beginnings, warnings and welcomes, darkness and light.
As I hold her against me in the golden light, I know with certainty that whatever storms may come, we will weather them all.
Epilogue
Tides of Change
Ashe
The sound of splashing and laughter pulls me from sleep before my alarm does. Sunlight streams through the curtains I forgot to close last night, and I blink blearily at the clock—7:14 AM. Way too early for this much racket.
I drag myself from bed, heading for the window that overlooks the stretch of protected beach below the lighthouse. A smile spreads across my face before I can stop it.
My mom is waist-deep in the tide pool, her silver-streaked auburn hair twisted into a messy braid that’s coming undone in the breeze. She’s pointing excitedly at something in the water while my two-year-old son, James, perches on her hip, his pudgy hands reaching out toward whatever treasure she’s found.
