Chapter 1285

Jude gripped her hips and let go.

When he spilled inside her, the Source sang.

A low, haunting hum filled the air, vibrating through their bones. The trees responded - branches twisting, vines dropping lower, the roots glowing beneath their feet. The light inside the Source shifted - from gold to red to silver, then back to gold again.

And then it descended.

The glowing sphere floated slowly toward them until it hovered just above Jude's chest. The mist wrapped around his body and those closest - Lucy, Emma, Rose, Stella - and drew them upward, off the moss, into the air.

He gasped as his body left the ground, suspended in warmth.

Inside the orb, he saw everything.

A vision.

The island - past, present, future - flashed through him.

Women dancing in fire.

Men kneeling in worship.

Roots winding through generations of skin and stone.

And then her face.

The goddess.

She wasn't a woman.