<h4>Chapter 1130: Chapter 1130</h4>


    Later, in the privacy of their treehouse, Judey with Sophie and Natalie, their bodies tangled, skin slick with the warmth of shared breath. There was nothing frantic in their rhythm, no dark influence, just mouths and hands and sighs in the moonlight, each touch a reminder of who they were before the ind started to change them. Natalie’sugh was soft, muffled against his chest. Sophie’s whisper was a kiss on his jaw.


    "You’re ours," she said. "Not hers."


    Jude fell asleep to the sound of their breathing.


    And dreamed of the watchersign.


    He stood in a forest of glowing trees, all of them marked. The blue script stretched like constetions, and at the center of them, a throne made of bone and vines. On it sat Elyara, her shape shifting with each heartbeat, sometimes a woman, sometimes a shadow, sometimes a mirror of someone he loved.


    She didn’t speak.


    She only smiled.


    And her mouth was his smile.


    When he woke, the watchersign on the tree outside the camp had changed again.


    The three words were gone.


    In their ce was one new word:


    Soon.


    The morning broke with a breeze that didn’t belong. It moved against the usual current, rustling leaves from the wrong direction, setting the hammock ropes swaying before the first footsteps even touched the dirt. Jude was the first to rise. The moment his feet hit the ground, he felt it, not danger exactly, but anticipation. A pause before the strike.


    The others began to stir not long after. Sophie emerged from the treehouse with Natalie still clinging to her side, eyes half-closed, lips slightly swollen fromst night’s heat. Lucy, always alert in the mornings, was already stacking dried wood near the fire pit, though she paused every so often to nce at the trees. Emma jogged in from the river path, barefoot, a spear across her back and damp strands of hair stuck to her neck. She said nothing when she dropped the bundle of fish by the rocks, just raised her eyes and nodded at Jude like she felt it too.


    There was a new watchersign on the same tree where "Soon" had appeared overnight.


    Now, another word sat beneath it.


    Awake.


    Rose stood in front of it before anyone else had noticed, her body perfectly still. Her back was to the camp, but Jude could see her shoulders rise and fall slowly, as though she were steadying herself before speaking.


    "Is it happening?" Zoey’s voice came from behind Jude, soft but strained.


    He didn’t turn around. "It’s always happening. But yeah. It’s closer now."


    Sophie walked to Rose and stood beside her, reading the new word. "This is a countdown."


    Rose finally spoke. "She’s not justing. She’s already here. We just haven’t seen her final form."


    "She was never going to walk out of the woods like a monster," Jude said. "She’s in the trees, the signs, the ind itself."


    "She’s in us," Rose whispered.


    "No," Sophie said sharply. "She was. But we pulled you back."


    Rose turned to face them. Her eyes were clear, focused. "Then we need to find out where she’s hiding now. Because I don’t think she’s waiting anymore."


    By midmorning, the camp split into search groups again. Jude took Rose, Sophie, and Emma, while Susan led Zoey, Lucy, and Natalie in the opposite direction. Scarlet and Grace stayed behind with Ste and La to monitor the watchersigns and protect the camp.


    Jude’s group took the west path, through the thicker part of the forest where the sunlight barely touched the moss-covered ground. They spoke little, but their steps were deliberate, their attention focused. Every shadow looked suspect. Every curve in the trees threatened to be a mark in disguise.


    They didn’t find her.


    Not yet.


    But they found the signs she was moving.


    In a grove near the twisted banyan roots, a circle of stone had been upturned, arranged in a spiral, just like the one Rose had led weeks ago. Jude crouched beside it and ran his fingers over the faint indentations.


    "They’re fresh."


    Emma scanned the clearing. "No markings?"


    "Nothing visible," Sophie murmured, but she was already digging. Just beneath the moss, she found a ck shard.


    Another fragment of the spine-like stone.


    Rose inhaled sharply. "That’s from her body."


    "She’s leaving them behind," Jude said. "Breadcrumbs."


    "Seeds," Sophie corrected. "She’s nting pieces of herself."


    Emma looked around the grove. "We need to burn this ce."


    They did. Quickly. Dry leaves, oils, flint, anything they had. The fire took fast and burned hard. The spiral hissed as the mes consumed it, and the shard cracked in half with a sharp, shrill sound that made all four of them flinch.


    "She felt that," Rose said quietly.


    "She needed to," Jude replied.


    By the time they returned to camp, Susan’s group had news of their own. They’d found another watchersign near the east path, carved into stone this time, etched so deeply it had split the rock itself. Beneath it were two more words.


    Ready now.


    Zoey looked pale as she ryed it, her hands wringing the bottom of her shirt. "She’s not hiding anymore."


    "She’s building toward something," Susan said. "I don’t know what, but every sign is getting bolder."


    Natalie was pacing near the fire. "We can’t just keep reacting. We need to do something."


    "We will," Jude said. "Tonight."


    Everyone looked at him.


    He stepped forward, lifting the broken shard they’d recovered. "We’ve stopped her rituals before. But we’ve never tried a watchersong ritual of our own. A iming one."


    Emma straightened. "You mean, use our own connection to push her out?"


    He nodded. "We mark thend with our bond. We remind her this ind responds to us. Not her."


    "Where?" Lucy asked. "She’s spread over everything."


    "Then we do it in the center," Sophie said. "The first ce we found watcherscript. Where it all began."


    The spiral basin.


    The decision was unanimous.


    That night, all twelve wives stood with Jude at the basin’s edge, torches lit, the stars low and heavy above them.