Kira didn't sleep.
She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, the pendant clutched in her hand.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw it.
The Marked Child wakes in her seventeenth year.
The words wouldn't leave her alone.
Outside, pre-dawn light began creeping through. Kira sat up, exhausted but unable to rest. Her birthmark pulsed steadily beneath her nightshirt, a constant reminder that last night hadn't been a dream.
Kira had just dozed off when Mina's voice cut through the silence.
"It burns! It burns!"
Kira bolted upright, disoriented. The room was still dark, too early for the wake-up bell. But Mina's cry came again, high and terrified, from the girls' dormitory down the hall.
Kira stumbled out of bed, legs tangling in sheets. The other girls were stirring, confused and frightened.
She ran to Mina's room.
The little girl sat on her bed, clutching her knee, tears streaming down her face. "Make it stop! Make it stop!"
Sister Mercy burst through the door, oil lamp in hand. "What's happening?"
Kira reached Mina first, dropping to her knees beside the bed. "Let me see."
Mina moved her hands.
Kira's breath caught.
Silver light emanated from beneath the skin. The same color as Kira's birthmark. The same impossible radiance that had filled Sister Mercy's office last night.
"Dear God," Sister Mercy breathed.
Kira stared, frozen. Yesterday, Mina had fallen on the playground, scraped her knee badly enough that Sister Catherine had worried about infection. The wound had been deep, possibly needing stitches.
Mina whimpered, pressing back against the wall.
And the wound closed.
The skin knit itself together in seconds, smoothing over as if the injury had never existed. Mina's crying stopped mid-sob. She stared at her knee, then at Kira, eyes wide.
"You touched me," Mina whispered. "Last night. I woke up, and you were standing by my bed. Your hand was on my knee, and it burned, but then..." She touched the healed skin with wonder. "It stopped hurting."
Ice flooded Kira's veins.
"I didn't,t" But even as she said it, fragmented images surfaced.
She'd thought it was a dream.
"Kira." Sister Mercy's voice was very quiet, very controlled. "Come with me. Now."
The other girls watched with wide eyes as Sister Mercy pulled Kira into the hallway, closing the door firmly behind them.
"I don't remember doing it," Kira said immediately. "I was asleep. I thought I was dreaming."
"You healed her." Sister Mercy gripped Kira's shoulders, fingers digging in hard enough to hurt. "You healed a wound that should have taken weeks to close. In your sleep."
The pendant in Kira's pocket burned hot against her hip.
Her eyes were frightened. "Power like this... it doesn't stay hidden. They'll sense it."
"Who?"
"You need to be careful," Sister Mercy said, releasing her grip. "Control it if you can. Hide it if you can't. Because if they find you..." She didn't finish the sentence.
Down the hall, Mina opened the door, peeking out. "Kira? Are you okay?"
Kira forced a smile that felt like broken glass. "I'm fine, sweetheart. Go back to bed."
But nothing was fine.
School felt surreal.
Kira sat in Mrs. Hendricks' English class, staring at the assignment written on the board without really seeing it.
The universe had a cruel sense of humor.
"Miss Kira?" Mrs. Hendricks' voice cut through her thoughts. "Did you hear the question?"
Twenty-three pairs of eyes turned toward her.
Kira's birthmark burned beneath her uniform. She'd wrapped it in bandages this morning, terrified someone would see the faint glow that refused to completely fade. "Sorry, what?"
"I asked if you had any questions about the assignment." Mrs. Hendricks smiled kindly. She'd always been one of the nicer teachers, one who actually seemed to care about the orphanage kids.
How am I supposed to explore heritage I don't understand? Kira thought.
"No questions," Kira said. "I understand."
But she understood nothing.
Mrs. Hendricks continued talking, but Kira's mind was elsewhere.
Her hand moved unconsciously to her shoulder, pressing against the bandages, feeling the heat beneath.
At lunch, Annie had saved their usual table, but when Kira arrived ten minutes late, she'd given the seat away.
"Sorry," Annie said, not quite meeting Kira's eyes. "You weren't here, so..."
Kira stood there with her tray, feeling invisible. Now she knew why.
She found an empty table in the corner. Around her, students laughed, talked, and complained about Normal live problems.
Everything she'd never have again.
Kira pulled out her phone, pretending to scroll while actually staring at nothing.
The cafeteria lights flickered.
Just once. So briefly that no one else seemed to notice.
But Kira felt it, like reality itself had stuttered. And for just a moment ,she could have sworn she saw someone standing in the doorway.
Watching her.
Kira blinked.
The figure was gone.
Kira looked around the cafeteria. No one else had seen that.
She was alone.
The rest of the day passed in a haze of paranoia.
By the time the final bell rang, Kira just wanted to disappear.
Kira walked back home
She kept looking over her shoulder.
You're being paranoid, she told herself. No one's there.
By the time St. Agatha's came into view, Kira was nearly running.
The orphanage looked normal. Kids played in the yard, their laughter carried on the autumn breeze. Sister Mercy stood in the window of her office, watching.
But something felt off.
Kira couldn't name it, but wrongness hung in the air like the smell before a storm.
She hurried inside.
Kira tried to lose herself in the routine.
"Kira! Kira, look!" Mina bounded over, rolling up her pant leg to show her perfectly healed knee. "It doesn't even have a scar! You fixed it!"
Several kids turned to look.
"It's like magic," Mina said, wonder in her voice.
The younger children laughed, thinking it was pretend. But a few of the older kids looked at Kira differently.
"It wasn't magic," Kira said, forcing her voice to stay level. "It just... healed on its own. Bodies do that."
But Mina shook her head, convinced. "You touched it, and it glowed. I saw it."
"You were half-asleep," Kira said. "You imagined it."
Mina's face fell. But she nodded, accepting the lie because Kira was someone she trusted.
The guilt was a knife between Kira's ribs.
She finished serving dinner in silence, then escaped to her room the moment she could.
She collapsed onto her bed and pulled out the pendant, turning it over in her hands.
The symbols shifted, rearranging themselves. Kira stared at them, willing them to make sense, to give her answers.
The pendant offered nothing but more questions.
Kira was still studying the pendant when she heard it.
Screaming.
The younger children, high and terrified, were coming from downstairs.
Kira bolted to her feet. She ran to her door, wrenched it open, and nearly collided with Sister Catherine in the hallway.
"What's wrong?"
"The children." Sister Catherine's face was pale.
Kira ran downstairs.
In the common room, all the kids were crowded against the windows, faces pressed to the glass, pointing and crying. Sister Mercy was trying to pull them back, but they wouldn't move.
"What's going on?" Kira pushed through the crowd.
Mina grabbed her hand, shaking. "The mark. On the gate. Look."
Kira looked.
Her blood turned to ice. Someone had burned a symbol into the iron gate at the front of the property, branded directly into the metal as if by hands made of fire.
And Kira could read it.
The same language from the prophecy. The same script that had crawled across her skin last night in Sister Mercy's office. The same ancient writing that covered the pendant.
It said: FOUND.