Chapter 1161
The night felt endless. The fire burned low, casting long, trembling shadows across their faces. Every crack of a branch, every rustle of leaves made Jude’s pulse quicken, made Lucy’s hand tighten around her blade, made Sophie’s breath catch. The island felt alive with tension, as if the ground itself was waiting for Rose’s next move. But the forest remained silent, holding its secrets just out of reach.
Dawn crept in slowly, painting the horizon in soft pinks and golds. But the light didn’t bring peace. It only revealed how pale and drawn they all looked, how little rest they’d gotten, how raw their nerves had become. Jude stared at the dying fire until the last ember faded, and then he rose, brushing dirt from his hands.
"We need to move," he said, voice low. "We can’t sit here and let her come to us. We have to find answers before she does."
Sophie nodded, though her eyes were heavy with worry. "Where do we even start?"
"The old path," Lucy said. "Where the symbols first appeared. Where the island first changed. If there’s a clue, it’s there."
No one argued. They gathered what little they needed, blades, ropes, the few charms they’d made from bone and stone in hopes of warding off whatever the island sent their way. The air smelled of damp earth and salt, the sea’s breath carried in on the morning breeze. It should have been beautiful. It should have felt like hope. But all it felt like was the calm before a storm.
They moved as one, silent but for the sound of their feet on the soft ground, their hearts beating in sync with the island’s pulse. The forest seemed to watch them as they passed, branches arching overhead, roots snaking beneath their steps. Jude kept glancing back, half-expecting to see Rose following, her smile lurking in the spaces between trees. But she didn’t appear. Not yet.
When they reached the old path, the place where the strange symbols had first burned into the stones, they stopped. The symbols were still there, faint now, as if time or rain had tried to wash them away, but their shapes were unmistakable, spirals, eyes, lines like rivers or veins. Sophie knelt, tracing one with her fingertip.
"They look like they’re part of the island itself," she whispered. "Not something made by hands. Like the earth carved them to speak."