<h4>Chapter 1196: Chapter 1196</h4>


    The others stepped forward in quiet awe. Zoey’s lips parted in a soft curse, but her grin was wild, exhrated. Scarlet slipped an arm around her waist and pressed into her side, whispering something that made Zoey chuckle even through the awe. Lucy crouched beside the cliff’s edge, studying the terrain below with a focused frown. Her de was already in her hand again, a silent promise she’d protect them no matter whaty between them and that spire. Susan, Grace, Natalie, Ste, all moved slowly across the stone, their eyes on the misty colossus ahead. Emma didn’t speak, but she moved to nk Jude instinctively, watching him with that quiet look that always said more than words ever could.


    "There’s no bridge," Jude said, voice rough with the wind and wonder. "No path. Not yet."


    "There will be," Rose said, her voice low, thoughtful. "The spiral doesn’t show us everything. Only what we’re ready for."


    "Then we wait?" Zoey asked, rocking back on her heels, hand brushing Scarlet’s.


    "Maybe not," Sophie murmured. "Maybe we listen."


    They did. The wind whispered and roared. The river below rushed like breath through an open chest. And the spiral hummed, low and deep and steady, vibrating through the stone beneath their feet.


    And then, it changed.


    The hum shifted, not louder but brighter, resonating through them in a new way, and beneath the terrace, there was a sound. A groan. A grinding. The deep thrum of stone moving. Jude took a step back instinctively, heart pounding, as a shape slowly began to emerge from the gorge wall.


    A bridge.


    Stone bs sliding from the cliff like giant vertebrae, one by one, each settling with a rumble, spanning the void toward the far spire. Mist curled around them, clinging like silk, as if reluctant to reveal the truth. But there it was. A path.


    Sophie let out a breath. "It really is showing us the way."


    Rose stepped forward first, fearless as always. She turned back, her grin wicked in the wind. "Come on. The spiral waits."


    They followed, step by step, hearts hammering with a mix of awe and terror and something that felt like joy. The stone beneath their feet was cold and slick with dew. Below them, the river roared, endless and hungry. But the bridge held.


    Midway across, Jude paused, ncing back. The forest behind them looked far away now. The arch, the terrace, the spiral path they’d walked-it all felt like memory, like a story they’d lived long ago. Ahead was mist, and the spire.


    As they reached the other side, the mist parted just enough to reveal the base of the structure. It was immense, the stones dark and slick, the spiral stairs hugging it tightly, rising out of sight into the clouds. Moss and vines clung to the edges. Glyphs etched the walls, spirals within spirals, and Jude’s skin prickled as he recognized them-not from knowledge, but from instinct, from dreams, from the pull of the hum inside him.


    "This ce..." Rose whispered.


    "It’s part of the beginning," Sophie said. "Before the de. Before the spire we found in theke. This one came first."


    Jude reached for the wall. The glyphs felt warm. Alive.


    Behind him, the others stood in silence. Even Zoey was quiet, her excitement tempered by reverence. Scarlet held her hand, fingers threaded tight. Lucy stood at the bottom of the spiral steps, looking up with a tension in her shoulders Jude hadn’t seen in days. Emma stood beside her, jaw set. Natalie and Ste stood back, arms around each other. Susan and Grace leaned into one another, silent but watching.


    "Do we go up?" Jude asked, turning back to them all.


    "It brought us here," Sophie said. "I think it wants us to."


    "One step at a time," Rose added, already cing her foot on the first stone.


    And so they climbed.


    The spiral staircase wound tightly, the steps narrow and wet, every turn taking them higher, until the air thinned and the mist clung to their faces like breath. Jude climbed near the front, with Rose and Sophie beside him, and the others spread out behind, the line of their ascent like a single heartbeat stretching skyward.


    Around them, the glyphs pulsed faintly on the inner wall, their glow like moonlight through a veil. Jude didn’t know how long they climbed. Time felt strange here. Endless. Stilled. Every heartbeat echoed. Every breath was shared.


    Atst, the stairs opened onto a wide tform, ringed with smooth stones carved with spirals and lines that curved inwards toward a central altar. A shallow bowl rested there, already filled with that familiar glowing water. Around the edges of the altar were carvings not just of spirals but of twelve figures-vague, worn by time, but unmistakably human. Standing in a circle. Facing the bowl.


    Twelve.


    Sophie whispered it before anyone else did. "Twelve."


    Twelve figures. Twelve wives. One man.


    Jude stepped forward, his breath catching. The hum surged. Every step toward the altar filled him with something between awe and dread. His wives gathered slowly around him, forming a circle without being told, their bodies mirroring the ancient carvings. Their love. Their unity. Their fate. All etched here in stone long before they ever arrived.


    Sophie’s voice was soft. "This ce... it’s for us."


    No one denied it.


    The wind whipped higher on the tform, and the bowl glowed brighter. Jude reached out, dipped his fingers into the water. It was warm. Alive.


    Something changed.


    The glyphs on the stone shimmered. The spirals turned.


    And then they saw it. All of them.


    In the mist beyond the tform, rising like a phantom from the clouds, the shape of something enormous-its form not quite flesh, not quite shadow. Spirals for eyes. A body that moved like fog but watched like stone. It didn’t roar. It didn’t charge.


    It simply watched.


    Jude stepped back instinctively, his heart pounding. Sophie clutched his arm. Rose’s smile faltered. Lucy had her de drawn before anyone could breathe.