Chapter 1642

The stars gleamed with unnatural brilliance above them, forming slow spirals that mirrored the ones etched into their skin. The sky no longer obeyed the laws of the world they had once known. 

It shimmered with the breath of something ancient - alive, sentient, watching. Beneath that sky, their bodies glistened with golden sweat, still tangled together, not just in the aftermath of passion but in the bond they had forged with the island itself. 

They didn't move for a long time, basking in the warmth of shared heat, of skin against skin, of the glow that pulsed in them now like a second soul.