Chapter 1649
He stood, his body aching with pleasure, his heart thudding like a drum. Sophie stirred beside him, and Lucy sat up behind her, brushing hair from her face, her golden-flecked eyes sharp and curious. Rose rose to her knees, her breasts glistening with dew, her gaze never leaving Alara.
"We didn’t even know there were more spirals," Sophie said, rubbing her abdomen, where the second spiral still pulsed like a second heartbeat.
"There are as many spirals," Alara said, "as there are truths you haven’t faced."
The air rippled.
And behind her, from the vines and trees and moss, stepped twelve more women.
They were not strangers.
They were the same.
Versions of themselves.
Lucy stared at herself, identical in every curve, every freckle - but her double wore her hair tied up, her body covered in ash and streaks of paint, eyes feral and wild.
Emma gasped and backed away as her mirror stepped forward - taller somehow, darker, her body scarred with symbols, her eyes bottomless pools of ice.
Each wife stood, suddenly surrounded.