Chapter 1731

The stars shimmered with impossible clarity above them, each one pulsing in slow rhythm like they too were part of the breath, part of the great cycle the island had drawn them into. Jude stood barefoot among the sleeping bodies of his lovers, the pulse of the tree beneath his feet still echoing in his spine, in his bones, in the deepest part of his being. The light hadn't left him - it had simply woven itself into him, a quiet golden thread in every heartbeat. He looked down at Lucy first, her cheek resting against the moss-covered root, her bare back dusted in stardust, rising and falling with the gentlest breath. She was still glowing faintly. All of them were. They had become more than women now. More than companions. More than lovers. They were each pieces of a living constellation, linked to him and to one another by something older than memory.