<h4>Chapter 1156: Chapter 1156</h4>


    They were changing faster.


    Emma had been thest thread of resistance in that group, and now she was gone. Just like La. Just like Zoey. Just like Susan, Grace, Natalie, and Scarlet. And Rose... Rose was the beginning of all of it.


    Sophie knelt beside him, a hand sliding up his arm. "We have to go. While they’re distracted."


    He didn’t move. "And do what? Run to where? They’ll follow."


    "We’re not running." Lucy’s voice came from behind a curtain of vines, low and urgent. "We’re searching. The spiral Rose led them to, it wasn’t just a ceremony. It was a gateway."


    Jude turned to face her. "A gateway to what?"


    Ste appeared beside Lucy, her eyes serious. "To the center of it. The real heart. Whatever part of her we didn’t burn out of Rose, it’s growing again. But maybe we can reach it before shepletes whatever she’s doing."


    Sophie nodded. "And maybe we can undo it."


    They set out in the dark, torches kept low, moving as quietly as possible. They didn’t tell the others. Jude kissed Emma’s cheek before they left, pretending it was casual, normal. Her skin was too warm. Her smile too perfect. She kissed his lips in return and whispered, "Be safe."


    He tried not to shiver.


    The deeper they walked into the forest, the more the air changed. Not cold, dense. As if they were passing throughyers of something too fine to see, but heavy enough to feel. The trees leaned slightly inward, and the ground beneath their feet began to shimmer faintly with patterns too intricate to be natural. Not watcherscript. Something else. Something older.


    They reached the clearing just before dawn.


    It wasn’t like before.


    Now the bones were embedded in the ground, half-buried as if they’d grown there. Spirals etched into bark pulsed faintly. Moss dripped from branches like green blood. At the center stood a stone arch formed entirely of twisting roots and ribs, curving inward like an open mouth.


    Jude stepped forward. "This is it."


    Lucy held out her arm. "Wait."


    But it was toote.


    A breath of air blew from within the archway, not wind, but something like a sigh. And behind them, something moved.


    They turned.


    Rose stood at the edge of the clearing.


    And she wasn’t alone.


    La. Zoey. Grace. Susan. Emma. Natalie. Scarlet.


    All of them.


    Standing perfectly still.


    All smiling.


    "You weren’t supposed to find this yet," Rose said, her voice calm, almost amused.


    Jude stepped in front of the others. "You were leading them here slowly. Why?"


    "To prepare them," Rose said. "So they wouldn’t fight. So they’d say yes."


    "To what?"


    Rose tilted her head. "To her. To what’sing. To what she is bing."


    "She?" Sophie said tightly.


    "The ind," Rose whispered. "She isn’t just alive. She’s waking up."


    Jude felt his throat tighten. "You’re not Rose anymore."


    "I’m more Rose than I’ve ever been," she said. "Just as they are more themselves now. Can’t you see it, Jude? We’re free. We don’t dream anymore. We know."


    Lucy stepped forward. "That thing in the woods, the one we all saw, is that her?"


    Rose smiled wider. "A piece. Like me."


    Ste raised her de. "Then you’ll understand if we don’t join."


    Zoey stepped forward from the others. "You will. Eventually."


    And then, without a sound, the ground beneath the arch shifted.


    A figure emerged.


    Not quite visible.


    Tall. Lithe. Made of bark and bone and breath and shadow. She had no face, but where eyes should be, light flickered. Dim and warm. Unnatural.


    Jude stepped back.


    Rose extended her hand toward the figure and whispered, "She’s ready."


    The creature turned its head toward Jude.


    And smiled without lips.


    Behind him, Lucy whispered, "Jude... Sophie..."


    Sophie’s voice was low. "Run."


    But it was already toote.


    The creature stepped forward.


    And Emma whispered from behind them, "Don’t run. She’s beautiful."


    The forest pulsed.


    And the gate opened.


    The world tilted.


    Jude didn’t move, couldn’t move. The figure stood framed in the bone-root arch, its form unclear yet overwhelming. It pulsed like breath. No features, only impressions, limbs that bent like willow branches, a torso woven from bark and blood and glimmering heat. Its presence wasn’t loud. It was silent and sure, like something that had always been there, waiting. Watching.


    And now she had stepped through.


    Rose knelt before the creature as if pulled by unseen strings. The others followed, La, Zoey, Emma, Susan, Grace, Natalie, Scarlet, all folding into a reverent stillness. Their faces were serene. Smiling. Expectant.


    Jude stood frozen, one hand outstretched toward Sophie behind him. She gripped his wrist tightly, her body tense. Lucy and Ste nked them, wide-eyed and ready to run. But none of them could take that first step.


    Not while she watched them.


    The creature turned her head, just a slight tilt, like curiosity, but the movement rippled through the trees, the moss, the soil beneath their feet. Something deep and ancient shifted beneath the ground, and the roots coiled tighter around the stones forming the gate, pulsing in rhythm with her breathless presence.


    Then her voice filled the clearing.


    It wasn’t sound. Not really. It pressed directly into their minds, soft and terrible.


    "I have waited so long."


    Jude staggered. He wasn’t hearing anguage. He was feeling it. Emotion without form. Memory without time.


    "You opened the gate with her flesh."


    Rose lifted her face. "We weed you."


    "You fed me your longing."


    Sophie stepped forward. "What do you want?"


    The creature turned toward her. Light flickered where her eyes would be. Sophie stiffened, her breath caught.


    "To be whole."


    The ground trembled, not violently, but with purpose. As though something beneath was rising to meet them.


    Jude pulled Sophie back. "We need to go."


    But Rose was already speaking again, louder this time. "You can’t leave. Not until you understand. Not until she understands."


    She stood, her eyes locked on Jude. "You were the only piece we couldn’t touch. The only one whose will stayed intact. But that won’tst. Not forever."