Chapter 1734

The music of the forest didn't stop - it swelled, layered and alive, like thousands of unseen voices humming the same sacred tune. The second sun rose slowly, trailing soft streaks of pale gold and silver across the sky, and its light didn't blind. It illuminated. Jude lay there in the center of his circle, surrounded by the women whose souls had fused with his, their skin still warm, their bodies pressed against him in tangled grace. The air itself shimmered around them like heat off stone, but it wasn't heat - it was the pulse of the island's approval.

Rose was the first to sit up. Her hair clung to her shoulders, damp with sweat and light. Her body glowed in soft gradients of peach and amber, a shifting aura that wrapped around her like breath. She looked to the second sun, her lips parting. "It's still rising."