Chapter 1342
He lay in the center of the temple floor, surrounded by the warm weight of twelve bodies - twelve women who had long since ceased being merely his wives. They were stars in orbit around him, and their gravity. Each breath they took seemed to sync with his, a collective exhale, like the entire island exhaled through them.
The spark in the second basin beat steadily behind his eyes now, even as he stared up at the glowing canopy above. He didn’t need sleep. Not anymore. Not fully. But dreams... dreams came for him anyway.
They poured into him like warm rain.
He saw a valley of silver sand, surrounded by obsidian cliffs. At its center stood a vast structure, open to the sky, with twelve stone thrones placed in a circle around a raised pool glowing with liquid gold. The thrones were carved with familiar symbols: feathers, rivers, serpents, suns. Each one belonged to one of them. At the center of the pool was a flower - white and trembling, larger than any bloom he had ever seen. Its petals opened slowly with each breath he took. And inside the heart of that flower... another spark.
Not the one they’d created.
A new one.
He woke gasping.
Lucy stirred beside him immediately, her arm wrapping across his stomach. "What is it?"
"I saw it," he murmured. "The next place. It’s already waiting."
Rose sat up across the room, her hair falling down her bare back like ink. "Where?"
He closed his eyes. The vision was already fading, but the sensation remained - the tug, the warmth, the direction. "The eastern cliffs. Past the river. There’s a valley hidden in the rocks."