<h4>Chapter 1074: Chapter 1074</h4>


    "It felt like the world didn’t exist," Sophie added.


    But Ste sat up suddenly, her eyes fixed on something.


    "Did you see that?"


    They all looked.


    Across the pool, at the edge of the waterfall, something shifted. A shape. A flicker. Not loud. Not threatening. Just... there.


    It was gone in a second.


    Jude stood.


    Emma looked confused. "Was that, ?"


    "I don’t know," Jude muttered.


    But he felt the cold settle into his bones again. That presence. Always watching. Always near. Even in their joy. Even in their most intimate moments.


    "I think we should head back soon," Ste said, her voice a little too steady.


    They dressed in silence, no longerughing. The walk home was slower, the air heavier.


    That night, Jude sat with Sophie on the roof of their treehouse. Stars zed above them. She leaned her head against his shoulder.


    "It’s following us," she whispered.


    He nodded.


    "I think they’re testing us," she added.


    "Who?"


    "Whatever took Rose. Whatever turned Zoey. It’s watching what we do. How we respond."


    "They see everything," Jude said softly.


    Her fingers found his under the nket. "But they haven’t taken us."


    "Not yet."


    Sophie turned to kiss him, slow and deep, like she needed to remind herself what it meant to feel without strings pulling from the dark. He responded with all the love he could give, pulling her close, letting their hands explore like it was the first time all over again.


    Later, as she slept beside him, he stared into the shadows beyond the railing.


    Across the clearing, the lights were dim.


    But in Rose’s window, someone was watching.


    Not moving.


    Just standing.


    Smiling.


    The morning drifted in like a soft breath, filtered through the swaying leaves above the treehouse. Jude woke slowly, his arm already wrapped around Sophie’s waist, her body pressed back into him, warm and tender. Her skin held the scent of sleep and the lingering sweetness ofst night’s passion. She shifted as he kissed the top of her spine, murmured something under her breath, and then smiled without opening her eyes.


    They didn’t speak for a while. They didn’t need to.


    When they finally rose, Sophie slid into his shirt with a satisfied grin, and Jude slipped on his pants, pulling her gently into a kiss before they stepped outside into the filtered sun. Below them, the clearing was already alive. Ste was collecting fallen leaves to dry and press, humming softly to herself. Natalie was up in the branches with Grace, tying together vines for new baskets, and Lucy and Scarlet were cleaning out a stash of dried fruit in the shade of thergest tree.


    Everything looked ordinary.


    But Jude’s eyes immediately drifted to the far end of the clearing.


    Rose was there. Standing by the well,ughing with Zoey and La. All three of them so synchronized in their smiles, their movements, their subtle nces.


    Jude didn’t know how to describe it. The unease didn’te from anything they said or did. It came from what they didn’t say, from the way they always seemed one thought ahead of everyone else. He saw it in the timing of their touches, the precision of theirughter, the way Zoey leaned in just a second before La turned her head.


    Sophie noticed too. She leaned into Jude’s side and whispered, "Let’s leave for a while."


    "Where?" he asked.


    "A walk. Just us. Somewhere we haven’t gone."


    Jude nodded. They told the others they’d scout toward the cliffs where the ocean’s sound rumbled like thunder on certain days. It was far, a ce they rarely reached, but curiosity had tugged at them since the earliest days.


    Sophie packed quickly, dried meat, water, two knives, and the little carved stone Lucy made her for luck. Jude carried their pack on his back, and as they slipped away from the main clearing, the shadows seemed to part willingly.


    They didn’t talk at first, just walked hand in hand, breathing the warm morning air. The path twisted through ferns and arching trees, the light dappling their skin like gold coins.


    "It’s still beautiful here," Sophie said finally, her fingers brushing over a cluster of white blossoms hanging from a vine.


    "It is," Jude said. "Even when it terrifies me."


    Sophie turned to him and kissed him. Just one soft, slow press of lips that said she was there, with him, grounded in something real.


    Further along the path, they crossed a broken bridge of stones half-submerged in the stream. Sophie lost her bnce on one of them and Jude caught her, pulling her close with augh as she clung to him, wet and grinning.


    "Just say it," she murmured.


    He tilted his head. "Say what?"


    "That you love me."


    He did.


    And she kissed him again, this time deeper, more urgent. She climbed into hisp, straddling him right there on the mossy bank. The stream bubbled beside them, oblivious to the way her fingers found his chest, the way their hips met in a slow, steady rhythm. They made love beneath the twisted canopy, breathless and tangled, and when they were done, sheid her head on his chest and traced the veins in his arms while he held her.


    "I wish we could stay in this moment forever," she whispered.


    "We are," he said. "Right now, it’s all that exists."


    They didn’t speak much after that, walking infortable silence until thend sloped downward. The air began to change. It smelled saltier, heavier. The cliffs weren’t far.


    But then Jude stopped.


    "What is that?"


    Up ahead, half-hidden behind a tumble of rocks, was something they had never seen before. A structure. Not natural, angled. Stone pirs. Moss-covered, cracked, but unmistakably built by hands.


    Sophie blinked. "That’s not possible."


    They approached slowly. The structure was barely the size of a hut, circr with a domed top that had copsed. Strange symbols were etched into the walls, barely visible beneathyers of dirt and age. In the center, an altar or pedestal, smooth and untouched, as if preserved by purpose.