Chapter 994
Rain clung to the orchard leaves like whispered warnings, tiny droplets slipping down into the soil as if the island itself had begun to weep.
Jude stood motionless at the edge of the clearing, staring at the lingering mist still curling in the trees where the watchers had vanished into the sky the night before. The ritual had ended. The light had faded. But something remained, a pressure, a hush that wasn’t natural. He glanced over his shoulder.
The wives were gathered under the sheltering awning of the central longhouse, their voices low, eyes flicking often toward him. The children, still drowsy from sleep, played near the hearth, too young to understand the tension laced in the adults’ silence. Jude felt it like a noose around his ribs. Grace approached, her shawl damp at the edges. She didn’t speak until she was beside him.
"They’re watching us again,"
she whispered.
"Not the watchers. Something else."
He didn’t need to ask who. He’d felt it too, beginning sometime just before dawn. A subtle shift in the air, like a breath being held too long. The memory of the cavern was still fresh in his blood, the glyphs glowing beneath his hands, the pillar’s pulse like a heartbeat synced to his own. But now the light felt like it had withdrawn, retreated somewhere deep within the stone or within the island’s flesh.
"The watchers haven’t come back,"
Jude said, frowning.
"They’ve never stayed away this long."
Grace followed his gaze toward the treetops. Nothing shimmered. No floating forms. No pulses of warm light or drifting glyphs. Just the wind teasing the branches.