Jude stepped forward, but Sol held him back.

    "You must go in together," Sol said. "All of you. This ce remembers. And it wants to show you what it knows."

    Grace looked toward the water. "Is it dangerous?"

    "Yes," Sol said without hesitation. "But only if you resist."

    Zoey gave a low, amusedugh. "Of course. Isn''t everything here?"

    Emma took Jude''s hand. "Let''s go."

    They undressed without shame, each movement reverent, ceremonial. The silks fell to the moss in silence. One by one, they stepped into the water—Jude first, then Sophie and Emma, then Rose, Lucy, Susan, La, Zoey, Natalie, Grace, Scarlet, Ste, and finally Serena. The water weed them without ssh or cold. It simply took them in, warm as blood, soft as memory.

    They stood shoulder-deep, in a circle, hands linked. Sol stood on the shore, watching.

    "When I call you," he said, "answer."

    Then he whispered a word none of them understood.

    The pool lit from beneath, brilliant and white, casting their reflections onto the surrounding trees. But the reflections were not their own.

    Each figure in the water''s surface showed a different version of them—versions older, younger, dressed in strange garments, bearing marks and symbols they''d never seen. Sophie gasped as her reflection reached toward her. Jude''s showed him with eyes of me. La''s was crowned in vines. Emma''s bled silver tears.

    "What are we seeing?" Sophie whispered.

    "Truth," Sol said from the shore. "Echoes. Pieces of you that live in other times, other dreams. The parts that shaped this ind before you ever arrived."

    "We made it," Rose breathed. "We made the ind."

    Sol nodded. "In other lives. Other forms."

    The water began to hum, vibrating softly beneath their skin. They closed their eyes, and the world fell away.

    When they opened them again, they were lying on stone—naked, tangled, panting as if they had been pulled from a fever dream. But the spiral was gone. The trees were gone.

    They were in a wide circr chamber, deep underground, lit by veins of glowing crystal in the walls. A fire burned in the center, and surrounding it were carvings—of them. Jude, the twelve women, and Sol. Depicted again and again in different styles, as different people, across ages.

    La touched the wall. "We were always meant to find this."

    Rose nodded slowly. "We''ve been here before."

    "Many times," Sol said, now standing beside the fire.

    The mes reflected in his eyes. "This is the heart."

    Jude stepped toward him. "What do we do now?"

    "im it," Sol said. "With each other."

    Jude understood before Sol finished speaking. He turned to his wives. They formed a circle again, as they had the night before, and this time their hands met not in fear or ceremony, but in pure, electric longing.

    One by one, the women came to him, kissed him, touched him—not with need, but with reverence, as if every inch of his skin told a story they were only now allowed to hear. And Jude gave them the same in return—stroking, tasting, worshipping the curves and hollows of each beloved body.

    The chamber pulsed around them. The walls shimmered with every touch, every sigh, every shared breath.

    When Lucy straddled him, their lips met in a kiss that felt older thannguage, older than flesh. The others circled them, hands on each other, on her, on him. It was no longer separable—there was no him and them. There was only **they**, entwined, sacred, shining.

    Sol stood at the center of the fire, and as their bodies moved in rhythm, he whispered in anguage older than stone.

    The mes rose.

    The walls throbbed.

    The crystal veins surged.

    And when the final cry of release echoed through the chamber—raw, beautiful, andyered in twelve perfect voices—the entire room erupted in light.

    When they woke, they were back in the sanctuary tree, wrapped around each other in the same soft tangle as before. Soly sleeping now, smiling in his dreams.

    Jude pulled Lucy close, kissed her temple.

    "We''re changing everything," she murmured.

    He nodded, and smiled.

    And far beneath them, deep in the ind''s roots, something pulsed once.

    Then again.

    And then began to grow.

    The warmth between their bodies was not just from the sun breaking through the canopy; it was deeper, richer—infused with something ancient that pulsed beneath their skin like a second heartbeat. Jude woke to the scent of Lucy''s hair tangled across his chest, her leg still hooked around his. She stirred, her lips brushingzily against his neck before sighing softly and nuzzling closer. Around them, the sanctuary was a quiet chorus of slow, intimate movement—arms stretching, fingers tracing bare skin, softughterced with the shimmer of something more than joy.

    Emma was the first to speak, sitting up slowly, her golden hair falling down her back. "It wasn''t a dream. That ce… the chamber… the fire. We really went there, didn''t we?"

    Sophie nodded, sitting beside her. "I still feel it. In my bones. In my blood."

    Zoey, lying on her back with her head in Natalie''sp, smiledzily. "I feel it in ces that aren''t bones or blood, but yeah… same."

    Susan chuckled, her fingers ying across Rose''s arm. "I didn''t know it was possible to feel that kind of connection. Not just with Jude… with all of you."

    Jude leaned back against the soft moss beneath them, eyes roaming across the twelve women—his wives, his world—and Sol, still sleeping peacefully in a curled little ball beside Ste and Grace. There was a glow about him, faint but unmistakable, like moonlight caught in motion. Whatever had happenedst night had not ended with their waking.

    Lucy turned to Jude, her voice quiet but firm. "We need to go back."

    He nodded. "Not just to see it again. To understand it. That ce… it was showing us something."

    La stretched, the fabric of her wrap slipping off one shoulder. "It was showing us *us.* Over and over again. Past lives, maybe. Or dreams made real."