When I woke, the light was wrong.
Too thin, too white — like it had been filtered through bone. The chamber felt smaller than before, its silence heavy enough to hum. My palms burned before I even looked at them.
Thirteen marks.
And then one more.
The fourteenth sat just above the rest, pulsing like a faint star under skin. Not bright — but alive.
I tried to breathe around it, to tell myself it was nothing. But I could feel it crawling deeper, like it was threading into my veins. My skin looked strange in the light, patterned in silver lines that caught each pulse of my heart.
I whispered, "No more."
The mark didn't listen.
Through the bond, Kaelen stirred — the faint warmth of his presence brushing against the edges of my mind. A question, a plea.
Are you there?
His voice sounded far away, muffled by guilt and distance.
Before I could answer, the warmth turned cold. The pulse under my skin shifted. Another voice came through.
Now she begins.
