<h4>Chapter 1123: Chapter 1123</h4>


    Judey on the ground, smoke rising from his skin. The tree behind him had copsed into dust.


    Sophie ran to him. "Jude, Jude!"


    He coughed. His eyes fluttered open.


    "I saw her," he whispered. "I saw everything."


    Susan knelt beside him. "Did you kill her?"


    "No," he said. "But I took back what was mine."


    From the jungle, footsteps approached.


    The others wereing.


    And for the first time in days... they weren’t smiling.


    The sound of approaching footsteps was different this time. Slower. Uneven. Hesitant. Jude turned his head toward the treeline, still t on his back, the charred scent of the bone tree lingering in his lungs. Sophie held his hand, her grip tight as if she wasn’t sure he was really there. Susan stood behind them, breathing heavily, her gaze fixed on the edge of the clearing.


    Then Rose stepped through the underbrush.


    But she wasn’t smiling.


    Her dress was torn. Vines still clung to her shoulders, but they hung lifeless now, brittle and brown instead of glowing. Her hair had lost its otherworldly sheen, and her eyes, though still sharp, no longer burned with that unnatural light.


    Zoey followed behind her, arms wrapped around herself, bare feet coated in ash. La emerged after, looking stunned, blinking as if she was waking up from a long sleep.


    The others came too, one by one, scattered and silent, Natalie, Ste, Grace, Lucy, Scarlet, Susan’s twin in appearance but not in presence. They all gathered at the edge of the clearing like a congregation unsure of their faith.


    Only Emma was missing.


    Sophie stood slowly, her body poised as if ready to run or fight, unsure which.


    Rose stepped forward and dropped to her knees.


    "I remember," she said.


    Jude forced himself upright. "Do you remember her?"


    Rose nodded. "Everything. The moment I touched the water, she came into me like a kiss. Like she’d always been waiting. She showed me the dream. The perfect world. And I wanted it so badly, I stopped asking if it was mine."


    Zoey sank down beside her. "We thought we were free."


    "You weren’t," Jude said. "None of us were."


    La crouched, resting her hand in the soot. "Then what did you do? That light, it ripped something out of me. Something I didn’t even know was there."


    Jude looked at the tree, or what remained of it. A crater of white ash, surrounded by scorched roots curling inward like fingers burned to the bone.


    "She was inside me," he said. "Since before the ind. I don’t know how. Maybe I imagined her into being. Maybe I brought her here when we first arrived. But I made her real. And she grew stronger every time we gave in to the fantasy."


    Grace spoke softly, "So... none of this was real?"


    Sophie stepped forward. "The ind is real. We are. But something else was feeding on us. Twisting us."


    Susan crossed her arms. "What happens now?"


    No one answered.


    The wives stood scattered across the clearing, eyes wide, shoulders sagged like survivors of a storm that came from within. For the first time in weeks, no one touched. No one smiled. No one reached for another with lust or longing or secret promises whispered at midnight.


    They were stunned.


    But not broken.


    Jude stood, shakily, brushing ash from his skin. Sophie helped him.


    Then, quietly, Emma stepped into the clearing.


    She was barefoot. Dressed in a thin white wrap soaked to her knees. Her hair was a tangled mess around her shoulders, wet and leaf-speckled. Her eyes were puffy, but bright.


    "I watched," she said. "From the river. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t stop watching."


    Jude met her eyes. "She didn’t take you."


    "No," Emma said. "But she touched me. And I don’t think she’s gone."


    A murmur rippled through the group. Not fear, not exactly, something like haunted relief.


    "Then what did you do?" Natalie asked Jude.


    "I pulled her out of me. And I gave her something she couldn’t hold."


    Sophie answered softly, "A real memory."


    "A real love," he added. "Not fantasy. Not obsession. Not hunger. Just... us."


    Ste stepped forward. "So what now? We go back to how things were?"


    Jude looked around at each of them. "We can’t."


    Lucy nodded, arms crossed over her chest. "Everything feels different."


    "Because it is," Rose said. "We’ve touched something beyond ourselves. We’ve changed."


    Sophie moved beside Jude, her presence a steady anchor. "But maybe now, we can start choosing again. Without being pulled. Without being twisted."


    Scarlet bit her lip. "Do we even remember how?"


    They stood together, all twelve of them, and him, in the circle of scorched earth.


    And slowly, the air began to shift.


    The sky brightened a little. The breeze no longer carried that sour floral scent. Somewhere in the trees, birds called for the first time in days.


    Emma stepped forward, lifting her hand toward the sky. A small white feather drifted down from the trees, and she caught it gently in her palm.


    "I think we begin again."


    Rose looked up, her expression softening. "Then let’s start."


    They turned away from the crater, moving in silence, barefoot through the softened forest. The ind no longer pulsed beneath them, no longer whispered.


    Back at camp, the fire was low. Embers glowed faintly in the pit.


    Jude stirred it, added a few sticks. Sophie leaned against him, her hand tracing slow circles over his back. Rose came to sit nearby, not close, but present. La pulled Zoey into a side embrace. Ste and Grace worked on gathering fruit, quietly. Lucy and Natalie stacked wood for the night. Emma washed the ashes from her arms in a basin while Susan watched from the edge of the trees.


    They moved like people returning from a long journey, wary, tender, tired.


    But still here.


    Later, as night fell, and the stars blinked alive overhead, Judey beneath the open sky with Sophie in his arms. The others had spread out across the de in quiet pairs and threes.