I stood at the canyon's edge, the wind blew up from below and tugging at my hair that was escaping the shawl as if reluctant to let me go. The stone beneath my boots was warm, but right now all I could feel was the cool, weighty presence of the small token of polished stone resting in my palm. It was no bigger than the length of my palm, stamped with a swirling desert sigil I didn't recognize. The stone was warm from my skin, but it carried a strange hum, as though it remembered every trial, every choice I'd made in the depths of that canyon.
The elder's words from before the trial still echoed in my ears: This is more than a mark of survival. This is your passage to belonging.
