Chapter 1427
Lucy paused mid-bite, the ripe flesh of a mango dripping down her chin as her eyes went wide. Scarlet dropped to her knees near the altar, her breath catching as if the air had thickened. Zoey’s head snapped toward the woods, her fingers still curled around the grip of a vine-blade she hadn’t touched in days.
Stella stood slowly from the altar’s shadow, her hands cupped protectively over her stomach.
"She’s waking," Rose said quietly, stepping forward with that familiar, reverent expression Jude had come to associate with truth. "The first bloom was pleasure. This one will be power."
Sophie’s gaze moved toward the tree - the massive golden one beside the shrine - and her breath hitched. "It’s moving."
Jude turned, and his heart stopped.
The leaves weren’t just rustling. They were folding inward. Curling in on themselves. Then the bark began to ripple. A slow, pulsing contraction like the tree itself was breathing. A heartbeat echoed up from the roots through the ground. One. Two. Then faster.
Stella gasped, falling to her knees.
"Stella!" Emma rushed to her side, catching her as she swayed.
"She’s coming," Stella moaned. "She’s coming."
The shrine responded. The blackwood altar pulsed with gold light. Vines unfurled from the edges of the clearing and began to twist upward, forming new shapes - walls, arches, columns - as if the island were building around them in real time.
Rose didn’t hesitate. She climbed the altar and knelt beside Stella, laying both hands on her belly. "It’s not birth," she whispered. "It’s becoming."