Cooler at the edges, deeper at the center. When I press near it, a thin electric line slides down my spine.
He exhales slowly. “Sensitive?”
“Yes, but alive.”
The skin around them is flushed now, heat spreading outward. It doesn’t feel wounded.
It feels marked.
Changed.
I tilt my head slightly, studying myself.
I don’t look smaller.
I don’t look owned.
I look… chosen.
The marks don’t diminish me. They frame me.
Calder’s hands settle on my hips. Tyler steps closer to my right side. Julian’s hand lifts, hesitates, then rests at my waist. All three reflected in the mirror behind me. All three watching my reaction.
“What do you feel?” Julian asks.
I search for the word. “Anchored?”
For a brief flicker, I see it again: greenhouse light through old glass. Soil beneath my palms. My grandmother’s voice:You always have a choice.
I chose this.
And now it lives on my skin.
I lean back slightly, resting against Calder’s chest. His breath fans warm against the crown of my head.
“Everyone will know,” he murmurs.
“I want them to.”
It isn’t defiance. It’s peace.
The heat beneath the marks deepens as if answering my certainty. A low-burning reminder that something ancient has locked into place.
Julian studies the placement one more time. “The scarring will settle in a few days. They’ll lighten slightly, butthey won’t fade.”
Calder leans down, lips hovering near the left mark but not touching. “They suit you.”
“Like they’ve always been there,” Tyler adds.
I meet my own gaze in the mirror and smile.
Not because I’m marked.
Because I chose to be.
And because when I look at myself now, I don’t see a girl who arrived at Elderwood uncertain of her future.
I see someone rooted.
