Chapter 1127

The ground cracked. A thin fracture raced from beneath the stone toward the trees, glowing red and hissing like steam escaping a wound. Zoey stepped forward, bare feet never flinching as the heat rippled outward. She smiled, not kind, not cruel, but something ancient and unknowable.

"It's not pain," she said. "It's birth."

Rose extended a hand, and from the soil around the stone, black roots began to rise. Twisting, bone-white vines slithered like serpents, forming a crude archway behind the stone, pulsing with that same infernal light. It wasn't a gate, but it felt like one.

"She's coming through," Jude muttered. "This time for real."

Sophie gripped his hand. "Then we don't let her."

But even as she said it, the arch pulsed, and behind it, a silhouette began to form.

Not clear. Not full.

But female.

Limbs long and fluid. Hair drifting like tendrils in water. No eyes. No face. Just the impression of hunger in the shape of a woman.