Chapter 1373

From the depths of the forest, where the trees grew oldest and the roots ran thickest beneath the earth, the air began to change. It wasn't just the afterglow humming through their bones, or the way the stars burned brighter now as if drawn closer by the spiral - it was something else. Something new. A wind that didn't rustle leaves but curled into their skin like fingers. A pressure, low and growing, that vibrated in their spines.

They rose from the stone slowly, Jude the last to move. His body ached in the most exquisite ways, tender and used and full. Lucy clung to his side, still slick with sweat and sex, her body glowing faintly as if she'd absorbed the stars themselves. Around them, the others dressed, or didn't. Clothes no longer mattered the way they used to. The wraps fell across curves and shoulders, sheer and ceremonial, but every one of them still gleamed in the moonlight.