Chapter 1486

Rose sat up first, her body bathed in the afterglow of ecstasy and divinity. The light from the altar no longer pulsed, but shimmered like a dying flame - not extinguished, only settled. She turned to look at Jude, her fingers gently brushing his cheek. "It accepted us."

He could barely speak, lungs still heaving from the high of what they had just become. The silence that followed wasn't absence, but saturation - every sound swallowed in the thick reverence of what had passed. The island didn't hum anymore. It listened.

Grace stirred next, curling against Stella, their bodies still tangled. Stella's eyes were wide, pupils dilated, a stunned kind of awe stretching across her face. "Did we… Did we just wake something up?"

"No," Layla whispered, lips touching Zoey's neck. "We became it."